Financial Times: Total frustration
By Brian Groom
Published: May 5 2005
When Total announced last year it was acquiring 25 per cent of Novatek, Russia’s biggest independent gas producer, the French oil major was applauded for making a smart move.
A few weeks earlier, Total boss Thierry Desmarest scotched speculation he was interested in bidding for Anglo-Dutch rival Shell. He also flirted with Sibneft, one of Russia’s biggest oil companies, but prudence prevailed.
He decided not to follow the example of BP, which paid the year before $7bn for a 50 per cent stake in TNK, Russia’s third-largest energy group. Instead, he went for a smaller target, investing $1bn for a blocking minority in Novatek.
Though a minnow compared with Gazprom, Novatek is one of the fastest growing and most profitable Russian energy companies. It has the added advantage of being one of the few Russian groups not owned by oligarchs. In short, it should have been a pretty straightforward deal.
That was reckoning without Russia’s arcane bureaucracy and political system. Total yesterday said it was still waiting for clearance from the Russian antitrust authorities to close the transaction.
The French are all the more frustrated because the regulator promised an answer by the beginning of April. They are also puzzled by the delay considering Novatek only has a 4 per cent market share of Russian gas.
Without the deal, Total risks missing its 4 per cent average annual production growth targets. As for Russia, it does little to enhance the credibility of Vladimir Putin’s new business-friendly approach.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
MORE DETAILS:
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
