CORRECTED-After Total pulls out of Iran gas, eyes on India

(Removes reference in paragraph 4 to Total's decision coming days after Iran tested long-range missiles. Total says its comments pre-dated the missile test)

By Annika Breidthardt and Himangshu Watts

SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI, July 25 (Reuters) - Oil major Total's move this month to effectively withdraw from Iran's last major LNG project brought cheer to India, which now seems to be Tehran's best hope for exporting its huge natural gas reserves.

The trouble is, Delhi's additional negotiating advantage in a $7.6 billion project nearly two decades old may ultimately do little to help overcome much bigger political hurdles.

U.S. success in deterring investors from entering Iran's upstream oil and gas sector may prove an even bigger impediment than it has in the past, especially with India's even more important nuclear energy deal on the line, while relations with Pakistan, the other partner in the pipeline, remain fraught.

France's Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) said recently it would spend no more money on Iranian gas projects for now, making it the latest in a slew of foreign companies to have backed away from Iranian gas.

The move also put on hold any immediate Iranian plans to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), which Iran would have been able to sell flexibly and internationally to the highest bidder, rather than to a fixed buyer through a pipeline.

"This leaves Iran with only one remaining large-scale gas export venture that has not yet been scrapped...the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline," Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst at Global Insight in London, said.

The OPEC member has the world's second largest gas reserves but has been slow to export to a world that is desperate for cleaner burning fuels, partly because of U.S. sanctions.