Four major European oil companies have pledged to stop investing in Iran's energy sector in compliance with a new set of sanctions Washington had imposed on Iran in July over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, the U.S. State Department announced on Thursday.

Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg identified the four oil companies that have agreed ""to terminate their investments and avoid any new activity in Iran's energy sector"" as Royal Dutch Shell, based in Britain and the Netherlands; France's Total; Eni of Italy; and the Norway-based Statoil.
In addition to the four, Kuwait's Independent Petroleum Group, India's Reliance Industries, Turkish refiner Tupras, Swiss energy firms Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura, Russian oil firm LUKOIL and BP have already informed the U.S. that they have stopped sales of refined petroleum products to Iran.
Earlier this week, Japan had indicated that the country's oil giant Inpex was in the process of halting its investments in Iran's largest on-shore energy project, the Azadegan oil fields. Though Japan gets almost one-fourth of the oil it required from Iran, it made the move to avoid the U.S. sanctions.
""These companies have provided assurances that they will stop or are taking significant verifiable steps to stop their activity in Iran,"" Steinberg said, adding that these firms have avoided Washington's sanctions that would have prevented them from doing business in the United States or with U.S. firms.
""However, some international oil companies have not yet committed to any new activities in Iran's petroleum sector. And for this reason the State Department is launching investigations into those companies,"" he said, without identifying those firms.
(Source: RTTNews)