Total accelerates its fall Tuesday afternoon in Paris Bourse, in a climate of growing concern about the consequences of the gas leak occurred Sunday on its platform of Elgin-Franklin North Sea.
At 4:16 p.m., the action of the oil giant posted the largest decline in the CAC 40, yielding 6.57% to 38.31 euros, its lowest level in three months. The title acknowledges its biggest drop since December 2008 and saw its market capitalization and nearly melted almost six billion euros.
Total, by far the highest weight of the ACC, led the Paris index, which yielded 0.68% while the other major European markets were stable and the sector index Europé in commodities advanced 0.53%.
At this stage, investors are more concerned about the impact of leakage on the group's production and its consequences on the environment and the prudent play while waiting to get an idea pre Cise of the magnitude of the disaster.
"Investors apply the precautionary principle in a situation still uncertain, in memory with the recent accident that affected BP," said Romain Burnand, co-director of Moneta Asset Management.
The explosion and sinking and the Deepwater Horizon, in the Gulf of Mexico, eleven had died in April 2010. Some 4.9 million barrels of crude oil had escaped from the Macondo well, drilled on behalf of the "major" British Petroleum. After the disaster, BP had lost more than 52% of its stock value in less than two months.
"With the memory of Macondo, the market remains very nervous about this kind of news until the problem is not quantified," says one trader.
"This event will impact Total's production and creates a risk of pollution, limited at this stage, but not yet identified," he says, noting that the group is still undecided in his faç ; we deal with the incident.
TWO OPTIONS
Total has indeed explained explore all possible options to deal with the gas leak on the platform Elgin-Franklin, including drilling a relief well, an operation that could take six months.
"There are two options for intervention. One is to drill a relief well, which could take about six months. The other is an intervention on the platform to seal the well (…) what would be a faster option, "he told Reuters David Hainsworth, safety manager, health and environment at Total Exploration & Production UK
. "We plan to decide on a course in the coming days," he In addition to mobilizing added
. 10 to 20 engineers, the group has engaged the services of Wild Well Control, society that occurred during the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010
. Total said Monday it has stopped production and have evacuated its staff on site (238 people), after the leak occurred Sunday.
The platform was producing nine million cubic meters of gas per day, equivalent to 3% of UK production of natural gas and 60,000 barrels per day of light crude.
The gas cloud that formed around the platform, located off Scotland to 240 kilometers east of Aberdeen, has forced Shell to evacuate employees of two neighboring platforms for safety reasons.
The leak has formed a cloud dense enough to be visible to other platforms in the North Sea. Shell has decided to suspend, as a precaution, to drill on one of them.
The environmental consequences of leakage of natural gas condensates are much less serious than those of oil spills, has informed the British Minister of Energy.
An exclusion zone of sea and air, however, was declared around the platform, said Total.