The minister said that the efforts are underway to replace the French company with Iranian ones. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and a consortium of Total, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) International, and Petropars signed the contract for developing phase 11 of the South Pars field in 2017 with Total's initial investment of $1 billion.
However in May, Total announced that it would "not be in a position to continue" the project in Iran and would "have to unwind all related operations before Nov. 4, 2018 unless Total is granted a specific project waiver by the U.S. authorities with the support of the French and European authorities.
The company said the decision was taken as a consequence of U.S. President Donald Trump's May 8 announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers known as the JCPOA, and the re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran.