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All tagged Total
◢ A French court on Friday fined oil giant Total EUR 500,000 for corruption after finding it guilty of paying bribes while bidding for a huge gas contract in Iran in 1997. The French company was accused of paying USD 30 million in bribes to middlemen, in return for help in securing the lucrative South Pars gas concession. In 2013 the company paid USD 398 million in the US to settle a similar case before it went to trial.
◢ French energy giant Total has officially quit its multi-billion-dollar gas project in Iran, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Monday, following the reimposition of US sanctions. "Total has officially left the agreement for the development of phase 11 of South Pars (gas field)," he told parliament's news agency ICANA, adding that it had been more than two months since the French firm announced it would leave.
◢ US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged European powers to get behind American measures to cut Iran off from world energy markets Thursday, during talks in Brussels. While debate at the nearby NATO summit was marked by President Donald Trump's attacks on Germany's close energy ties with Russia, his top diplomat had another target.
◢ Most French companies hoping to keep doing business in Iran after the US imposes new sanctions on the country will find it impossible to do so, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday. These companies "won't be able to stay because they need to be paid for the products they deliver to or build in Iran, and they cannot be paid because there is no sovereign and autonomous European financial institution" capable of shielding them," Le Maire told BFM television.
◢ Iran's oil minister on Wednesday gave French energy giant Total 60 days to win a sanctions waiver from Washington or it would lose its stake in a multi-billion-dollar gas project. "Total has 60 days to negotiate with the US government," said Bijan Zanganeh, according to the oil ministry's Shana news agency.
◢ Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday that European efforts to save the nuclear deal after the exit of the United States were not sufficient. "The cascade of decisions by EU companies to end their activities in Iran makes things much more complicated," Zarif told reporters.
◢ Iran said Saturday it would wait to see whether Europe produces tangible results in overcoming US sanctions before deciding whether to stay in the nuclear deal, as a top EU official visited Tehran to present plans to maintain trade ties. "The ball is in the court of the EU. They have presented different proposals, we will see if they materialize," Iran's Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters.
◢ Chinese state-owned oil company CNPC will replace Total on a major gas field project in Iran if the French energy giant pulls out over renewed US sanctions against Tehran, Iran's oil minister has said. Total started the USD 4.8-billion South Pars 11 project in July 2017, two years after Western powers signed a nuclear deal with Tehran prompting the return of many businesses to Iran.
◢ French energy giant Total will push ahead with a $4.8 billion deal to develop an Iranian gas field and will seek a waiver if Washington re-imposes sanctions, the firm's CEO has said. If Washington does walk away from the deal, Pouyanne said, Total will argue that as the project was "awarded prior to that decision during the period of time that we could sign."
