Total’s chairman and CEO was the only passenger in the Falcon 50 business jet besides three crewmembers who were also French citizens.
“Total confirms with deep regret and great sadness that Chairman and CEO Christophe de Margerie died just after 10pm (Paris time) on October 20 in a private plane crash at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, following a collision with a snow removal machine,” the company said in a statement.
Total SA is France's second-biggest listed company, with a market
value of 102 billion euros and the West's fourth biggest oil and
gas group, as well as one of the top foreign investors in Russia.
Despite Western-imposed sanctions on Russia that prohibit western
financing and technology transfer to some Russian energy
projects, Total is continuing to pursue a natural gas project in
Yamal, a joint venture with Russia's Novatek and China's CNPC.
“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,”
the Total boss told Reuters back in summer.
Meanwhile, another Total project, with Russia’s sanctions-hit
Lukoil, is “definitely stopped,” de Margerie said in
September, but since the project had not started it did not have
“any impact” on Total, he told the Financial Times.
De Margerie had recently expressed his support for a wider use of
other currencies in transactions outside the US – for oil
purchases in particular – after the scandal involving France’s
largest bank, BNP Paribas, which was slapped with a record $9
billion fine and a 1-year dollar trading ban.
“Nothing prevents anyone from paying for oil in euros,”
de Margerie said in July. “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.”
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