Gazeta wrote Total's loss in Russia would obviously undermine its plans to increase oil and gas production by 4% in 2004-2010, the most ambitious development program in the oil industry. Without a stake in Novatek, Total output will grow by no more than 3% until 2010.
Late last September, Total applied to the competition authorities for permission to buy 25% plus one share in Novatek, hoping to have the deal completed by the end of 2004.
Experts were been pessimistic about the bid from the day it was announced, because Novatek shareholders valued their assets at more than Total was ready to pay: the gas producer raised $966 million in a recent London flotation of 19% of its equity, but Total offered only $850 million for a controlling share stake.
The regulator first promised to consider the case by April this year, but then postponed the decision until May, the paper wrote. Even a request made by French President Jacques Chirac to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to accelerate the process was unsuccessful.
The Anti-Monopoly Service had no formal reasons to block the Total bid that, as Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom produces 25 times more gas than Novatek. The only existing energy project in this country Total is currently involved in is a share in the Kharyaginskoye oil field in the northwest of European Russia, which produces a million metric tons a year.
Another theory for the failed Total bid is that through the numerous postponements Russia might have been sending a message: "open your markets and we will open ours." But this seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Now the deal is history.
