Totalfina News

First major public appearance of new Total head; he challenges European politicians to fight US ban. The new head of French energy major Total challenged Europe to fight Washington over the U.S. oil export ban, in his first public appearance since his predecessor Christophe de Margerie was killed in a Moscow plane crash last week. Patrick Pouyanne said on Thursday the export ban flouts free-trade agreements and puts European and Asian refiners at a disadvantage, making a bold appeal to European politicians. "We need to fight and put this topic on the table," Pouyanne said during a sometimes emotional appearance at London's annual Oil & Money conference, where de Margerie had been a popular speaker over the years. "I hope the European Commission raises this issue ...

Thousands of protesters from western France marched through Paris on April 1 to demand tighter shipping laws in the wake of the Erika oil tanker spill which devastated parts of their region. The march was called by action groups from western France along with local politicians and environmentalists. Police estimated 2,000 people attended. TotalFina, which chartered the Erika, was targeted by protesters in two separate incidents before the march. On the day of the protest, activists dumped sand and oil in front of what they believed was the home of TotalFina boss, Thierry Desmarest. According to police, they left the scene upon realizing that they had the wrong address.

Thousands of protesters from western France marched through Paris on April 1 to demand tighter shipping laws in the wake of the Erika oil tanker spill, which devastated parts of their region. The march was called by action groups from western France, along with local politicians and environmentalists. Police estimated 2,000 people attended. Oil giant TotalFina, which chartered the Erika, was targeted by protesters in two separate incidents before the march. Earlier on Saturday, activists dumped sand and oil in front of what they believed was the home of TotalFina boss, Thierry Desmarest. According to police, they left the scene upon realizing that they had the wrong address.

French police found a parcel bomb near an Elf motorway service station last week, and a government official said it could have been meant as a protest against the oil spill from the tanker Erika. A spokesman for the government representative in the area said the hitherto unknown Armed Group for the Protection of the Environment claimed responsibility by telephone for the device, which was discovered north of Paris. Police cleared the service station and adjoining restaurant while a bomb squad defused the device. The spokesman said the attack could be linked with last December's oil spill from the tanker Erika, which had been chartered by TotalFina, but added, "at the moment we do not know."

Philippe de Villiers, deputy head of France's RPF dissident Gaullist party, has vowed to sue oil company TotalFina for polluting the French coastline after its chartered tanker Erika sank and split apart. De Villiers, who is also president of the council of one of the areas affected by the spill, argues that the state should sue TotalFina, and said he believes the oil giant is "responsible morally and without a doubt legally" for the pollution. He said a part of the profits from the oil company, formed from the merger of TotalFina and Elf Acquitaine, should be seized.

The cyclical nature of the oil business has blossomed into full bloom during the latter part of 2000, as a host of political power plays have sent oil prices on a virtual rollercoaster, albeit mostly up, helping to send it soaring as high as $37/barrel at the time of this writing. The business of accurately predicting the direction in which oil pricing will go has seemingly become less of a science and more of a speculative game. While it was the Asian financial crisis which led prices to the cellar in 1997, it is another crisis — the potential advancement of hostilities in the Middle East — which have helped to send the price back up to near decade (read: Gulf War) heights.

Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, has agreed to buy third-ranked Texaco Inc. in a $35 billion stock deal that will form an energy powerhouse, sources familiar with the situation said. If approved by regulators, the deal will be the latest in a wave of transactions that reshaped the industry by creating behemoths such as Exxon Mobil and BP Amoco. Chevron and Texaco rank as the world's fifth- and seventh-largest oil companies and long have been viewed as ripe to participate in the consolidation sweeping the industry. The new company, to be called Chevron Texaco Corp., will also go head-to-head against other industry leaders like Royal Dutch/Shell and TotalFina Elf.

Four European oil firms are reportedly negotiating with Cuba to carry out deep-water exploration of the island's Gulf of Mexico waters, and at least two are likely to sign contracts early next year, Cuban oil officials were reported as saying. In a separate development, Brazil's state oil firm Petrobras had also started drilling an exploration well in north-central Cuban coastal waters whose results will be announced in January or February. The exploration efforts formed part of a strategic program by Cuba's communist government to boost domestic oil and gas production and so reduce costly oil imports, whose high prices this year have badly strained Havana's stretched finances. Dr.

Shell is considering a self-imposed ban on single-hulled tankers for cargoes coming through the Bosphorus from the Black Sea. "They're considering demanding double-hulls on any tankers they charter for their cargoes through the Bosphorus," said one London broker. Brokers said that although Shell had a limited presence in the Black Sea, it was expected to expand in coming years. They said BP Amoco, Chevron and TotalFina all had a major presence there. Collisions and shipwrecks are not uncommon in the Bosphorus, a narrow passage winding through Turkey's largest city Istambul and on which commercial vessels are guaranteed free passage during peacetime under the 1936 Montreux Treaty.

Oil giant TotalFina, which chartered the ill-fated oil tanker Erika, has tightened its policy on chartering older tankers. However, company officials stressed that a new age limit on large ships, which would not have stopped it chartering the mid-sized Erika, need to be backed up by tougher international maritime standards and greater transparency of safety checks. The company is cutting to 20 years from 25 the upper age limit on chartered vessels of 80,000 dwt and above, while keeping it at 25 years for smaller ships. The Maltese-registered Erika, of 37,283 tons dwt, was 25 years old when it split apart and sank off the French coast last month, spilling thousands of tons of fuel oil that polluted the French coast.

A backlash against older tankers and flags of convenience, triggered by the December sinking of the Erika off the coast of France, achieved a tangible first step last week with the signing of a Ship Safety Charter by oil majors and ship classification firms involved in the French petroleum shipping industry. The parties signing the three-page document, including TotalFina, Elf Aquitaine, BP Amoco France, Royal Dutch/Shell France, Esso France, ship classification firm Bureau Veritas and petroleum industries federation UFIP, agreed not to use single-hulled ships after 2008 and, effective immediately, to only use ships over 15 years old if they have passed recent intensive inspections.

French Environment Ministry Officials have demanded tougher maritime laws as thick fuel oil from a tanker that split up one week ago edges closer to the country's Atlantic coastline. For the fourth day in a row, strong winds prevented navy vessels from pumping up scattered slicks of oil in the sea south of the Brittany coast. Officials said that maritime traffic laws must be strengthened. "One cannot approve of a system that uses old tubs, underpaid sailors and minimizes controls," one official was quoted as saying. The 25-year-old tanker Erika, carrying 25,000 tons of fuel oil, broke in two last Sunday in heavy seas. The bow and stern both sank on Monday, and experts estimate that between 8,000 and 15,000 tons of oil have escaped from the ship's various holds.

A group of 41 oil majors will make their tanker inspection reports available to port examiners in Europe. They also aim to ensure higher standards for their shared reporting system as part of a raft of initiatives to ensure greater tanker safety in the wake of the Erika incident. SIRE (ship inspection reports) do not pass or fail vessels on structural issues but concern operating standards. The Paris MOU is Europe's agreement by which unsafe ships are detained by individual countries' port-based inspectors until repaired. But it is expected that the European Union to increase sanctions on oil companies as ship charterers in the wake…

The captain of the tanker Erika, which sank off France's west coast in December causing a huge oil spill, has said crews had to work to such tight budgets that safety standards could not always be met. The ship's captain, Karun Mathir, said many shipowners were obsessed with cutting costs "to the point of pushing crews through safety and endurance thresholds". "There are certain things that nobody dares to say, but the job has changed a lot, everything is going too fast, everything is dominated by money," the 36-year-old captain said. The Erika's crew was winched to safety when the vessel split apart and sank in stormy seas on Dec. 12.

Elf Aquitaine Chairman Philippe Jaffre said he will only enter merger talks with TotalFina if TotalFina agreed to spin off the merged group's chemicals activities into a separate company. Jaffre told France's LC1 television it would be left to Elf and TotalFina shareholders to decide in two months' time between TotalFina's hostile bid for Elf and Elf's counter-bid if the two companies failed to agree on a friendly deal. He said he was "very confident" shareholders would opt for Elf's proposal. TotalFina launched a hostile bid for Elf on July 5 to create the world's fourth largest oil company. Elf responded two weeks later with a counter-bid and said it would spin off the new group's petrochemicals and chemicals businesses into a separately quoted company.

Market fears that the takeover battle between France's two largest oil companies could be prolonged reportedly increased when the market regulator failed to set a closing date for TotalFina's bid for rival Elf Aquitaine.

Iran announced its biggest oil find in 30 years last week, a 26-billion barrel field discovered just as the country drives to revive exploration activities and foreign firms compete for big deals. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said the oilfield in the prolific southwest Khuzestan province has the potential to produce up to 400,000 bpd. He said that development on the field, which is close to the Iraqi border, will start by the end of March 2001 and could earn revenues of some $100 billion given current estimates of recoverable reserves. The massive discovery by the National Iranian Oil Company comes under renewed Iranian efforts to rejuvenate exploration activities in a country with the world's second largest natural gas reserves and fifth biggest oil reserves.

TotalFina Chairman Thierry Desmarest said that relations with rival Elf Aquitaine had entered a more relaxed phase and said he would seek a friendly end to their takeover fight in the coming weeks. "The atmosphere has become more relaxed over the past week," Desmarest said. Desmarest confirmed he was ready to raise his offer if a friendly deal could be reached. "In order to secure a deal, if we want to move more quickly, we need to accept that there is room for discussion," he said. TotalFina launched a 42 billion euro hostile bid for Elf on July 5 and Elf responded with a 50 billion counter-bid two weeks later. Desmarest said that negotiations between the two oil giants had not yet begun.

French oil company TotalFina has reportedly agreed a friendly merger deal with Elf Aquitaine, bringing to an end their takeover fight and creating the world's fourth largest oil company. TotalFina Chairman Thierry Desmarest will head the new group. The board will comprise nine Elf directors, nine TotalFina directors and four directors representing the Belgian shareholders within the TotalFina board.

TotalFina's European energy merger with Elf has tied up the rejuvenated oil sector's last obvious pairing but more marriages may still be on the cards. The revival of oil prices from historic lows that spurred furious company consolidation has not fixed the energy sector's underlying problems and other firms will have to seek strength through size, analysts said. U.S. Texaco and Chevron need acquisitions to avoid being left as Big Oil's poor relations while in Europe Italy's ENI, Austria's OMV and Norway's Norsk Hydro, all slowed by state holdings, have been left trailing. "The structural problems facing the industry have not gone away," said J.J. Traynor of Deutsche Bank.

The takeover battle between Elf Aquitaine and TotalFina has reportedly taken a more hostile tone, pushing back the prospect of friendly merger talks between France's two largest oil companies.

TotalFina reportedly made a deep offshore gas discovery in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a consortium with U.S. Marathon Oil and WI Inc. The group found a gas column approximately 197 ft. high located southeast of New Orleans, on the Camden Hills prospect.

French tanker operator Copamar said it would have to fold after a French court backed TotalFinaElf's decision to pull out of a five-year charter of two aged tankers. "We have cash-flow problems," said a source at Copamar. "We will certainly have to close. That's life," he added. He said the 25-year old Guri and the 30 year-old Gatteville had been taken on five-year charters by TotalFina in 1998, but the charters had been terminated 10 months ago. TotalFinaElf's decision to terminate the contract came during a change in chartering strategy last year. It said it would not use ships of over 25 years old in French waters following public outrage after the 24-year old Erika broke apart in the English Channel in December 1999, spilling 8,000 tons of fuel oil and polluting Brittany beaches.