TEHRAN: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday inaugurated the final phase of the South Pars gas field, one of the largest natural gas condensate fields in the world and the largest in the country.

Iran shares the gas field with energy giant Qatar, and on the side of the Islamic Republic, which has been developing it in the Gulf since the 1990s, there are 24 platforms.

During a ceremony in the southern port city of Asalouyeh, which was broadcast live on state television, Oil Minister Javad Owji said about 50 million cubic meters of gas would be pumped daily from phase 11 of the project “after the completion of the wells.”

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Raisi, meanwhile, complained that foreign companies, including French energy giant Total, “failed to fulfill their obligations to complete the 11th phase of South Pars”, leaving the work to Iranian experts.

Total is expected to develop South Pars Phase 11 together with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and an Iranian company under a 2017 contract worth $4.8 billion.

A year later, Total pulled out of the project after then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. In 2019, Tehran announced that China had also abandoned the project.

After Russia, Iran has the world’s second largest gas reserves and the world’s fourth largest oil reserves.