Total CEO De Margerie Dies in Moscow Plane Crash

[VersaillesinNY]

This is pretty sad. Mr Big Moustache will be missed, he was such a great visionary leader. RIP.

Total might face some volatility in the upcoming days.

 

"Killed by a drunk snowplow driver, possibly with the connivance of drunk air traffic controllers: a painfully Russian end for the man Putin called “a true friend to our country.”" Fortune magazine

 

"Free spirited and deliberately provocative, this passionate debater was not afraid to defend his ideas that sometimes flirted with controversy. Supporter of shale gas and of higher tax rates." HEC

 

“Nothing prevents anyone from paying for oil in euros, the price of a barrel of oil is quoted in dollars. A refinery can take that price and using the euro-dollar exchange rate on any given day, agree to make the payment in euros.”

 

"Can we live without Russian gas in Europe? The answer is no. Are there any reasons to live without it? I think - and I'm not defending the interests of Total in Russia - it is a no."

Christophe de Margerie

 

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Christophe de Margerie, the Total SA (FP) chief executive officer who oversaw the biggest increase in reserves at the French oil explorer in at least 15 years, died in a Moscow plane crash, Interfax reported.

 

The 63-year-old CEO died at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport when a business jet crashed, Interfax said, citing an unidentified law enforcement official. Four people aboard a Dassault Aviation SA Falcon jet died when it crashed into a snowplow late yesterday, Elena Krylova, a spokeswoman for the airport, said by phone, adding it’s against policy to name the victims.

 

Russian officials started an investigation into the crash of the plane, which was headed to Paris, the Moscow regional transport prosecutor’s office said in a statement. Calls to Total spokesman Charles-Etienne Lebatard and to the French Foreign Ministry weren’t immediately returned.

 

During a 40-year career that began in Total’s finance unit, de Margerie oversaw far-flung operations for the French petroleum giant from Indonesia to the Middle East to Kazakhstan. Earlier this year he helped negotiate the Paris-based company’s entry into Russian shale under a Siberian drilling venture with OAO Lukoil; the company also is a partner in the vast Russian gas development on the Yamal Peninsula.

 

Nicknamed the “Big Mustache” for his ample white whiskers, de Margerie cut a larger-than-life figure at international energy conferences including IHS Inc.’s CERAWeek event in Houston earlier this year when he discussed the impact of surging exploration and drilling costs on oil producers and consumers.

 

As CEO, de Margerie could be seen lingering with a glass of whisky in hand talking with analysts and industry representatives long after the end of conferences he addressed.

 

Total is the world’s fourth-largest non-state energy company by market value, after Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The French company’s $228 billion in annual sales exceeds the economic output of nations such as Ireland and Vietnam.

 

Under de Margerie’s reign, reserves-life, or the number of years of current production that could be replicated using existing reserves, rose in every year but one, the longest such streak for Total since at least 1998.

 

Total was reevaluating plans to explore for shale oil in Western Siberia with partner OAO Lukoil amid economic sanctions against Russia, the company said last month.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-20/total-ceo-de-margerie-dies-in-moscow-plane-crash-interfax-says.html

 

http://wew.oilcareerfair.com/news/oil_gas/a/133120/Totals_CEO_Says_Successor_Will_Be_Company_Insider

 

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