Global energy majors are welcome to help develop oil and gas projects in Iran despite new sanctions imposed on the country, a top official said.

'We welcome all international companies, eastern or western. The oil industry cannot be deprived of co-operation,' Pars Oil and Gas Company adviser Mohammad Hossein Mousavizadeh was quoted as saying in our sister newspaper, the Gulf Daily News.

The firm is developing the giant South Pars fields in Gulf waters.

Several top energy majors have either quit Iran or are considering an exit since world powers in June slapped new UN sanctions on Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme.

Mousavizadeh said the development of South Pars, which holds about eight per cent of world gas reserves, was not affected as Iranian companies were replacing global firms or foreign firms were staying on as associates.

'The development of South Pars is a closed chapter. The contracts have been closed with big consortiums,' he told reporters after they were given a tour of phases 14, 15, 16, and 18.

'These (Iranian) consortiums have foreign associates. In the past, foreign companies came as leaders of consortiums such as (France's) Total which was in charge of construction, technology and finance,' he said.

'But that model is over now,' he said, indicating that Iranian companies were now leading the projects.

'The sanctions are mainly for their companies not ours. We are not worried about sanctions in terms of technology. If we face any problem, we have to plan for it.'

He said Khatam Al Anbiya, the industrial wing of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, pulled out of phases 15 and 16 because of their construction activities elsewhere.

'Any consortium that cannot observe the timetable of the project for any reason should step aside and be replaced. And they have been replaced by domestic companies,' he said.

Khatam Al Anbiya won the contract in late June 2006 to develop the phases. – TradeArabia News Service