Baku, Azerbaijan, July 31
By Dalga Khatinoglu, Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
Amid the recent row between Iran and the US over new sanctions, an Iranian expert believes that the presence of oil giants such as Total and Shell on Iran's market has political significance.
Erfan Haji Ali Akbar, Iran's representative at International Petrochemical Technologies (IPT Srl) company in Italy, told Trend that the presence of such companies in the Islamic Republic demonstrates their trust in the Iranian market.
In the meantime, these companies through cooperation with Iran prove that they ignore political propaganda, he said.
"The giant companies, in fact, could play a key role in facilitating the flow of investment to Iran and the expansion of international cooperation," he mentioned.
Saying that Italian firms possess a good record in Iran, he added that Italian companies such as Saipem have reached several agreements on cooperation with Iran in several spheres.
In early July, France's Total signed a $5 billion deal with Tehran to develop phase 11 of Iran's South Pars, the world's largest gas field, marking the first major Western energy investment in the Islamic Republic since the lifting of sanctions against it.
The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to slap new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea but the bill in order to become a law needs to be signed by President Donald Trump.