French oil major Total has halted all its trade in oil products with Iran in compliance with a European embargo, Total Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said in an interview. Total was one of several European oil companies that had been resisting pressure from the United States to stop doing business with Iran, part of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over its nuclear programme.
De Margerie told Reuters that his company was now respecting the embargo, though he indicated that it had not taken this decision in response to US pressure. "It's very simple. There is an embargo which has been voted on and has been transposed into European and French law," he said on Saturday on the sidelines of the World Policy Conference in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh. "We await the implementing laws, but there you are, we will respect the embargo. The embargo is no more products sold, no more products bought, and we have already done it, we've already stopped," he said.