IRAN: TOTAL OF FRANCE PULLS OUT OF IRAN

IRAN» Iran’s oil TEHRAN, minister said on Monday that France’s oil giant Total SA has officially pulled out of Iran after cancelling its $5 billion, 20-year agreement to develop the country’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field over renewed U.S. sanctions.

The parliament’s website ICANA.ir quoted Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying that since Total first announced its decision a while ago, Iran has been in the process of “looking for an alternative” to Total. He didn’t elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from TotaI.

Earlier this month, Iran said China’s state-owned petroleum corporation took a majority 80 percent share of the project.

Conoco says Venezuela will pay $2 billion arbitration award.

CARACAS,

VENEZUELA» U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips says it has reached an agreement with Venezuela’s stateowned oil company to recover nearly $2 billion it was awarded as part of a decade-old expropriation dispute.

Monday’s statement from Houston-based Conoco says that PDVSA has agreed to recognize the judgement by an international arbitration panel and will make the first $500 million payment within 90 days and the rest over a period of some four years.

In exchange, Conoco will suspend legal actions to seize PDVSA’s facilities in the Dutch Antilles that had threatened to disrupt Venezuela’s already-depressed oil exports at a time of widespread shortages and hyperinflation.

Malaysia lobbies for Chinese help amid fiscal woes.

BEIJING» Malaysia’s leader said Monday that he hoped China would sympathize with his country’s fiscal problems as he met with the country’s leaders after suspending multibillion-dollar construction projects financed by Chinese loans.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said at a news briefing with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that he was seeking support from China’s leaders over Malaysia’s situation as it deals with a mass of debt and other economic problems created under previous administrations.

“We hope also to get China to understand the problems we face ... and I hope that China, and I believe that China will look sympathetically toward the problems that we have to resolve and perhaps help us to resolve some of our internal fiscal problems,” Mahathir said.