Total S.A.
From Freepedia
Total SA (Euronext: FP, NYSE: TOT) is a French oil company headquartered in Paris, France, and one of the top four oil companies in the world (along with Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil). Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. Total is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer.
Total merged with the Belgian Petrofina, and after Total's takeover of Petrofina in 1999, it became known as Total Fina. Afterwards it also acquired the French Elf Aquitaine. First named TotalFinaElf after the merger in 2000, it was later renamed back to Total in 2003.
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Organisation
- Upstream
- Oil & gas production/exploration
- Gas & power
- Downstream
- Refining & marketing
- Trading & shipping
- Chemicals
- Arkema
- Total Petrochemicals
- Fertilizers
- Resins, adhesives and electroplating
- Cray Valley
- Sartomer
- Cook Composites & Polymers
- Atotech
- Bostik
- Elastomer Processing
The AZF chemical plant which exploded in 2001 in Toulouse, France, belonged to the Grande Paroisse branch of Total.
Controversies
Oil for Food
Total won contracts with Saddam Hussein's regime to develop the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq, consisting of 25% of Iraq's oil reserves.
Burma
Although Total does maintain a socially responsible investment program, there has been recent controversy over its corporate involvement in Burma (also known as Myanmar) despite recent European Union sanctions on new investment in the country due to its poor human rights record. Democratic activists have accused Total of propping up that country's brutal military junta.
These activist groups, which include Europe's largest Burma lobbying group, Burma Campaign UK, point out that Total is currently involved in a joint venture with the military regime developing an offshore gas field in the Andaman Sea. The gas is exported to Thailand through a pipeline that travels 65 kilometres through Burma. Total is one of the biggest foreign investors in Burma.
Total has been taken to court by six Burmese people who were used as forced labour in the preparation of Total's pipeline in Burma.
At a recent meeting of the company's small shareholders in France, activist groups called for Total to cease its operations inside Burma, but the company has refused to budge on the issue, despite urging from activists and independent financial advisors.
The regime benefits from Total's investment and thus, Total's involvement in Burma is branded by democratic activists as a major factor propping up the regime and perpetuating its brutal and illegitimate rule.
The construction of the Yadana pipeline has led to environmental devastation, while revenues from Total's investment in Burma fuel purchases by Burma's dictator, Than Shwe, to increase weapons supplies.
Burma's democracy movement, led by 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, has called on companies to leave Burma until the ruling dictator agrees to participate in a transition to democracy. Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has strongly criticized Total's deal with Burma's military regime, stating: "Total has become the main supporter of the Burmese military regime."
See also: US Campaign for Burma, Burma Campaign UK, Official Total Response
Miscellaneous
The headquarters of TotalFinaElf were free-climbed in February 2003 by "Spiderman" Alain Robert, in protest of the American-led invasion of Iraq.
External links
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