Power Engineering - Total says it is certain to enter nuclear sector

5 February 2007 - Total, the French energy group, is setting its sights on nuclear energy as access to oil and gas becomes more restricted and countries unwilling to allow foreign investment in their most precious resource.

Christophe de Margerie, who will take over as Total's chief executive next month, said in an interview: "Being in the energy business, [which] we consider not only as our business but also as a responsibility vis à vis the consumers, we will certainly one day have to be part of this [nuclear] adventure."

He said that it was not an immediate concern, but, as access to hydrocarbons became more difficult, Total was having to branch out into other forms of energy. Renewables would only satisfy a small portion of the world's overall energy needs, he said, though they would be important in countries that lacked oil and gas.

So for Total, he said rhetorically: "If it is not hydrocarbons, if it is not renewables, if it is not nuclear, what is it?"

As oil prices have risen, opportunities for inter-national oil companies have dried up. Countries such as Russia, Venezuela and Algeria have reasserted control over their oil and gas fields, and others, including Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have kept the door to international investment in their most precious resources tightly shut.

About 80 per cent of the world's oil is now controlled by national oil companies, leaving international oil companies struggling to replace their reserves and increase production.

Total has been one of the more successful companies in raising production, but has recently run into roadblocks in Russia and Venezuela.

But Total's interest in nuclear is not only a sign of the oil industry's struggles; it is also an indication of the changing attitude towards atomic energy.

Nuclear is becoming a more acceptable choice in countries such as Finland, the US and the UK as governments worry about energy security and carbon emissions and voters gasp at the size of their gas bills.

China, which needs energy to continue its impressive economic growth without asphyxiating its cities with smog, wants almost to double its nuclear energy production by 2020.

In fact, in the past Mr de Margerie has played down Total's interest in nuclear, even when Total was considering it in narrowly defined terms, most notably as a replacement for natural gas in the extraction of oil from Canadian tar sands.

"We don't have any serious idea of what nuclear can bring to the extraction of bitumen," he said in September 2005.

Mr de Margerie's comment came after Ralph Klein, Alberta's premier, had reacted angrily to statements by Total's head of natural gas and power that Areva, France's nuclear group, was studying the option of building a small reactor for Total.

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