Iran and a consortium of Chinese and French energy giants signed a multi-billion-dollar deal in Tehran on Monday to develop a major Iranian gas field in the Persian Gulf.

The deal followed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the National Iranian Oil Company and a consortium involving China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), France's Total and Iran's Petropars in November 2016 to develop Iran's South Pars (SP11) gas field.

At Monday's signing ceremony, Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Total's CEO Patrick Pouyanne and Lv Gongxun, representatives of the CNPC were present.

According to Zanganeh, the contract for development of the gas field is worth 4.8 billion U.S. dollars. The contract will be carried out in two phases with a total period of 20 years.

At each stage, 2.4 billion U.S. dollars of foreign fund will be allocated for the project, the minister said, adding that Total will operate the SP11 project with a 50.1 interest alongside CNPC with 30 percent and Petropars with 19.9 percent.

Iran expects to produce as much as 56 million cubic meters per day of natural gas from the field once it is in full swing, he said.

The South Pars field is a natural gas condensate field located in the Persian Gulf. It is the world's largest gas field shared between Iran and Qatar.

According to the International Energy Agency, the field holds an estimated 51 trillion cubic meters of in-situ natural gas and some 50 billion barrels of natural gas condensate.

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