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Paris - Total's major oil and gas projects in Africa will not be stopped by the sudden fall in crude oil prices and will help the French company meet its long-term production targets, a top executive said on Tuesday.
Total has bet on a string of African projects such as Egina in Nigeria, Kaombo in Angola and Moho in the Republic of Congo to help it boost production to a target of 2.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2017.
These are West African projects in deep and ultra-deep water - an area where Total is a self-proclaimed specialist but that require costly technologies.
"These projects have been engaged and we certainly won't stop them, which means thousands of jobs will be preserved for projects up to a 2017-2018 horizon," Guy Maurice , the head of Total's exploration and production branch in Africa told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.
"All the big projects are in the pipeline today. This will allow us to meet our production targets for 2017-2018 as planned," he said.
He said the recent drop in oil prices - which has seen Brent crude oil plunging by more than half since June - will prompt the group to review certain projects in Africa, country by country, but that no major project was at a stage that required a final investment decision.
"What could come up tomorrow, in 2025 or something, is not at a pre-sanction stage, it's still very early in the study phase, we're not in a phase when we have to arbitrate between doing it or not," he said.
He said Total would work with partners - subcontractors and producing countries - to help bring the cost of projects down, on the model of what was achieved with the Kaombo project in Angola, which was launched after a $4bn reduction in costs last year.
"Half of the reduction came from us, we changed our requirements, a quarter from our suppliers, and a quarter from the Angola government, which has accepted a lower level of local content," he said, referring to producing countries' increasing demands for the use of often more costly local suppliers and untrained staff for oil projects.
