Total Share Discussion Threads

[grupo guitarlumber] 09/7/2016 09:22

TOTAL 27/09/2016 14/10/2016 Acompte 0.61€ 42.65€

[maywillow] 08/7/2016 05:58

Why Is Total S.A. Investing in Qatar?
Winning bid for 30% of oil venture makes Total a serious player in Qatar.

Images

IMAGE SOURCE: TOTAL S.A.

Sometimes, you just have to go where the money is -- or in Total S.A.'s (NYSE:TOT) case, you have to go where the oil is. The company recently won a 25-year contract to create a joint venture with Qatar Petroleum, taking a 30% stake in the offshore Al-Shaheen oil field. Combined with Total's current portfolio in Qatar, which already includes 134,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/D) of production, the company appears very confident in the production potential from the small OPEC nation.

As an investor, should you feel as confident in Total's Qatar gambit, or should additional investments in the country be met with skepticism?
The winning bid

Total's winning bid to operate the Al-Shaheen oil field bested competing bids from oil giants such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Total will now replace AP Moeller-Maersk A/S (NASDAQOTH:AMKBY), which has been in charge of operations since 1992 as Qatar Petroleum's partner for Al-Shaheen. They will form a joint venture known as the North Oil Company. The contract will run for 25 years, and begin in July 2017.

Now that Qatar has selected Total to run the oil field, though, Total's CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, has no illusions about the difficult task at hand. "Our first objective is to maintain 300,000 barrels a day," he said. "Currently that's not a given as there's a natural decline (in production) as it's a complex field." According to Pouyanne, Total will invest $2 billion over the next five years to maintain that production, while identifying opportunities to increase production from parts of the field that are undeveloped.

In addition to Al-Shaheen, Total already has major stakes in the offshore Al Khalij oil field, the offshore North Field complex, and interests in liquid natural gas plays and refineries.
Qatar's large reserves

The Al-Shaheen oil field, which pumped 300,000 BOE/D in May, makes up nearly half of Qatar's oil production. Qatar, though, as the third smallest oil producer in OPEC, has plans to increase its total production. Although OPEC quotas and oil prices could impact future increases, Qatar would like to see production from Al-Shaheen raised to 500,000 BOE/D. With its $2 billion in planned expenditures, Total is depending on this increase to expand its return on investments.

Total's Qatar expansion is actually part of the company's strategic move into the broader Middle East. In January of 2015, it won a 10% stake in the UAE's onshore oil fields under a 40-year agreement, giving Total about 160,000 BOE/D.

As Pouyanne explains: "We want to have a portfolio which can resist the volatility of oil price. That's why we like the Middle East, and Qatar in particular -- to have access to giant resources where we can have very competitive assets."

And that's an important point. As OPEC struggles to maintain its influence in global oil prices, OPEC nations still sit on some of the largest reserves in the world. That's what Total is banking on – large proven reserves that it can efficiently develop to add to its worldwide production numbers. While Al-Shaheen is considered a "complex" offshore oil field, Total views it as an easier task than investing in deepwater deposits.

Total's expansion in Qatar gives it access to dependable reserves for the next 25 years, which is a smart investment at a time of volatile oil prices.
Foolish bottom line

Placing such a heavy investment within the chaos of the Middle East, at a time when OPEC is fading as the predominant oil influencer, is questionable, to say the least. But Qatar is relatively stable from a geopolitical standpoint, and even with waning influence, OPEC nations continue to sit on hefty oil reserves such as the Al-Shaheen oil field.

Total has been busy in recent months expanding in less-proven markets, such as renewable energy and undeveloped African reserves. Its move to shore up more-stable assets should leave you feeling good about its future production.

[grupo] 06/7/2016 22:41

These 5 Quotes From Total's Management Show Why It's One of the Best in Big Oil
Total's management has done a great job of managing the recent downturn in the oil and gas market. Here's how it accomplished that feat.

Tot Investor Presentation

Image source: Total investor presentation.

Total (NYSE:TOT) has been a beacon of light in what has been a rather dark oil and gas market over the past couple of years. Even though oil prices have been well below the $100-a-barrel mark that we saw back in 2014, the company has been able to churn out much better earnings results than the rest of its big oil peers. This hasn't been complete luck, though. Total's management has been able to get there through some large cuts to its operational budget and bringing a quiver of large projects online.

These five quotes from CFO Patrick de la Chevardiere help paint a pretty good picture as to how the company has been able to outperform its peers and what the company needs to focus on in the coming quarters and beyond if it wants to keep up this momentum.
Cutting production costs

Just about every oil and gas company out there is saying that they are cutting costs and getting ready for that lower-oil-prices-for-longer scenario that so many have feared. Based on some of the results de la Chevardiere highlighted during the most recent conference call, Total is indeed making those deep cost cuts to its operations:

We are continuing to cut costs in line with our target for a further reduction of $900 million for the group on top of the $1.5 billion we got last year. Using first-quarter numbers, OpEx is below $7 per BOE, in line with our objective to reduce OpEx from $7.40 per BOE last year to $6.50 per BOE on average for this year.

All of that cost-cutting is a primary reason why Total's net income result declined only 18% from 2014 to 2015 while its integrated oil and gas peers saw net income declines of 40% or more.
Cleaning up the cash balance

Despite Total's strong results lately, the company is still spending more money than what's coming in the door. De la Chevardiere points out that the company is close, but there is one caveat:

As an industry, we are back to volatility, and Total's response is to continue to execute and deliver on the strategy that makes us more competitive in any environment, so the key here is to reduce the cash breakeven. Looking at the first quarter with Brent at $34 per barrel, we came close to balancing the cash from operations with a cash outlay for net investment. This was $3.7 billion and $3.9 billion, respectively. The results show that we are rapidly reducing the cash breakeven, mainly as a result of managing down the CapEx as we exit an intensive investment period and at the same time, maximizing the cash generated from operation by increasing production.

Net investment is the key word here, because that includes asset sales the company used to gain a little more cash. Selling diminishing assets or those that don't necessarily fit into the company's long-term vision is pretty common in this business, but it shouldn't be relied upon as a steady source of cash. The bigger focus needs to be on cutting its costs such that it can generate cash profits without needing to sell assets.
Breaking even thanks to flexibility

Another way that the company can get closer to that cash breakeven is to cut spending. According to de la Chevardiere, there is plenty of room in the 2017 budet to do that if necessary:

In February, we indicated the cash breakeven for 2016 should be around $45 per barrel Brent, but in the first quarter, the breakeven was around $40 per barrel Brent...about 40% of our 2017 CapEx was uncommitted. So we have a lot of flexibility in our investment and cash breakeven.

Keep in mind though, that breakeven here is for its capital expenditures only and does not include its dividend payments. Sill, this is pretty good progress. Just last year the company's breakeven price projection was $60 a barrel, but that was also based on $19 billion in capital spending. With only 60% of that budget committed, there is a chance that breakeven for 2017 could come down significantly depending on where oil prices are and how aggressively the company wants to pursue some of its larger investments over the next couple of years.
More production gains coming

Last year, Total blew away its integrated oil and gas competitors by posting a production gain of 9%. It appears that Total could be in line for another big bump this year as well:

In the first quarter, we started up two new projects, Laggan and Vega Pleyade, plus a ramp-up on nine start-ups for the last year. So we are in line with our target to increase production by 4% this year.

We should also keep in mind that this production increase projection was before the company announced that it had won a concession contract with Qatar for the Al-Shaheen offshore field. The 25-year concession project will result in a production boost of just under 100,000 barrels per day for Total in a place where oil production is cheap in relation to other projects.
Planning for the future

Even beyond these current catalysts, Total's management is also cognizant that it needs to keep spending to grow and replace any declining production. So de la Chevardiere made a point to highlight the progress on one of its largest future projects, the Yamal LNG facility in Russia:

I can tell you that for Yamal, project financing of $4 billion equivalent is being finalized with Russian banks as we speak, and significant progress has been made recently with Chinese banks for another $12 billion equivalent.

Clearly Yamal is going to take a lot of spending to get off the ground, but the size of Russia's gas fields and the total cacpacity of this project should make it worth it long-term as long as Total and its partners can keep the facility's construction on time and on budget. Keep an eye out over the next several quarters for more updates on this project.

[waldron] 05/7/2016 18:23

French oil and gas company Total announced the creation of a gas, renewables and power division on Tuesday, which it said will help drive its ambition to become a top renewables and electricity trading player within 20 years.

The new business division, to be led by a president with a seat on the company's executive committee, will take effect from Sept. 1.

"Gas, Renewables and Power will spearhead Total's ambitions in the electricity value chain by expanding in gas midstream and downstream, renewable energies and energy efficiency," Total said in a statement.
PUBLICITÉ
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The new organizational structure was presented by Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne to workers' representatives at a works council meeting in Paris on Tuesday.

"The goal is to be in the top three global solar power companies, expand electricity trading and energy storage and be a leader in biofuels, especially in bio jet fuels," Pouyanne said in the statement.

The Gas, Renewables and Power branch will be Total's fourth business division. The others are Exploration and Production; Marketing and Services, and Refinery and Chemicals.

A spokeswoman said the plan outlined on Tuesday was not a strategic roadmap but the company's ambition of where it wanted to be in 20 years. Total will present its strategic outlook to investors in September.

The company said last year that it plans to spend at least half a billion dollars annually in its renewable energies and aimed to increase the share of clean energies in its portfolio to between 15 to 20 percent by 2035, from 3 percent currently.

The spokeswoman said the company was responding to the shift in global energy demand from fossil fuels' dependency to more energies from renewable sources to combat global warming.

"The idea behind it is that we will remain an oil and gas major with competitive oil assets that we can exploit with a low break-even point," she said.

Total also said on Tuesday that it was creating a global services division which will pool some services including purchasing, information systems and human resources in an effort to cut costs in the current price downturn.

The reorganization will not result in any job cuts, it said.

(Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Susan Fenton)

[waldron] 30/6/2016 22:32

Oil Outages Come Back Online, Cause Large Downside Risk
By Nick Cunningham - Jun 30, 2016, 2:53 PM CDT Oil Rig

A month ago fires raged in Alberta, militants attacked oil fields in the Niger Delta, U.S. shale production was plummeting – and oil prices were capping off a spectacular rally, rising more than 80 percent in three months.

But by the end of June and early July, the bullish sheen on the oil markets is wearing off.

In May, Canadian oil producers had to shutter facilities and evacuate workers. The entire city of Fort McMurray was abandoned for weeks. Canada saw production plunge by more than 1 million barrels per day (mb/d), taking huge volumes off of the global market.

Nigeria also contributed to the market tightening. The Niger Delta Avengers were on a rampage a few weeks ago, successfully pulling off attack after attack, blowing up pipelines, platforms, and oil wells. The companies they targeted were household names – Chevron, Shell, Eni. The Niger Delta Avengers threatened to take Nigeria’s oil production to “zero.” The situation was so bad that oil companies had no clue when and if they could get personnel in to repair their damaged infrastructure. The potent and shockingly successful attacks from the Niger Delta Avengers quickly caused Nigeria’s oil production to plunge from 2.2 mb/d down to somewhere between 1.1 and 1.4 mb/d, the lowest level in nearly three decades.

The two massive outages in Nigeria and Canada essentially tipped the global oil market from a supply surplus of about 1.3 mb/d into a deficit. More losses could be found around the world: The U.S. saw output fall to about 8.7 mb/d, down more than 900,000 barrels per day from a peak 14 months earlier; smaller losses are taking place in Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, and more. In short, global supply outages hit a five-year peak in early June.

But some of those outages were only temporary, and a few weeks on from these surprising disruptions, output is starting to come back online. Canada may have lost more than 1 mb/d as oil sands producers fled wildfires, but the fires were never going to keep production offline permanently. It will take years for Fort McMurray to recover, but Canada’s oil companies are already getting back to work.
Related: $13 Billion Oilfield Services Merger Set To Move Forward

The U.S. has also seen its contraction slow. The oil industry added almost two dozen rigs in early June, halting a year-long slide. A few companies are starting to drill again, raising the prospect of new production.

The developments in the Niger Delta are even more surprising. The Niger Delta Avengers and the Nigerian government recently agreed to a temporary ceasefire. The period of calm has allowed for companies to make repairs and bring production back. Nigeria’s oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu told Bloomberg on June 27 that the country’s oil output has climbed from 1.4 mb/d to 1.9 mb/d in June. He hopes that further gains can be achieved in July, hopefully bringing production back up to 2.2 mb/d, pending pipeline repairs.

This is great for Nigeria, but bad for oil producers elsewhere. Goldman Sachs now says that the ceasefire could contribute to oil prices falling below $50 per barrel in the second half of this year if Nigeria is able to bring all of its production back. There are more questions than answers coming out of Nigeria, making any prediction difficult. But Goldman Sachs says that it “cautiously221; expects about 350,000 barrels per day in Nigeria to remain offline, outages that could conceivably balloon to 1.1 mb/d if attacks from the Avengers resume. On balance, the bank is projecting $50 oil this year, but the ceasefire could cause prices to surprise on the downside. “The path of future Nigerian production remains uncertain in the absence of a sustainable agreement,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a recent report.
Related: Is Wall Street Right About Electric Utility Stocks?

The slightly pessimistic outlook for oil prices comes from more places than just Goldman Sachs. Oil futures are showing a widening contango at the end of June, an indication that the markets expect a larger near-term surplus than in previous weeks. Speculators increased net-long positions for the week ending on June 21, but only for the first time in five weeks. "Short-term supply conditions look overwhelmingly bearish," Georgi Slavov, global head of energy, iron ore and shipping research at Marex Spectron, wrote in a report this week.

Although there are a handful of wild predictions out there, such as this prediction calling for oil to plunge to $10 to $20 per barrel this year, most analysts see little change ahead. A collection of 118 energy analysts surveyed by Bloomberg found that 62 percent of them expected WTI to end the year at $50 per barrel, largely unchanged from today’s levels. Not incredibly bearish, but certainly not bullish either. Only 23 percent of them see oil prices above $55 per barrel this year.

Oil prices may have rallied 80 percent from their February lows, but most analysts don’t see the rally continuing.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

[ariane] 28/6/2016 20:56

Total Reveals $2 billion Invesment Plan for Qatar
By Lincoln Brown - Jun 28, 2016, 2:16 PM CDT Offshore Oil Rig

French oil major Total has announced its plans to develop the Al-Shaheen oilfield in Qatar over the next five years, at a price of approximately $2 billion. The company recently won a 30 percent stake to operate in the area.

Qatar Petroleum, which is owned by the state, owns the remaining portion of the stake. Saad al-Kabbi said that Total and Qatar Petroleum will form North Oil, a brand new company created for the project. Al-Kabbi said that Total will be in charge of the overall project.

Patrick Pouyanne, Total’s CEO, said that the company has plans to invest in the area from 2017 to 2022. Pouyanne added: "This is an important recognition of Total's technical and commercial competence, and the Group will deploy its best technical expertise and experienced teams to this field.”

Total will replace Maersk Oil, which has been operating in the Al-Shaheen since 1992 and has a production agreement that will expire next year. Maersk, which is a subsidiary of the Danish company A.P. Moller-Maersk, had been involved in a tender process, and had at one time expected to retain the right to operate in the Al-Shaheen. However, a source in the Qatar oil sector reported that the government issued the tender since it wanted to see production jump to 500,000 barrels per day.
Related: Low Oil Prices See China’s Oil Output Shrink 7.4%

The government had hoped that the Al-Shaheen would have hit 525,000 barrels per day by 2010, as outlined in a 2005 agreement with Maersk, but the capacity has plateaued at 300,000 barrels per day.

The Al-Shaheen oilfield has been producing for 22 years, and at it is responsible for 40 percent of the crude oil produced in Qatar. Over the last 30 years, Qatar has become the largest producer of liquefied natural gas, and its oil minister is the current president of OPEC.

By Lincoln Brown for Oilprice.com

[sarkasm] 27/6/2016 22:49

Saft powers Amrumbank West
Each turbine on 302MW project fitted with nickel battery
Saft powers Amrumbank West image 27/06/2016

Saft has supplied Uptimax nickel batteries to Eon’s 302MW Amrumbank West offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, some 40km North of Helgoland.

A total of 80 batteries – one for each turbine – has been supplied, the company said.

In the event of an interruption to the main power supply, the batteries are designed to deliver peak power for essential communication and lighting services for sea marking for an initial period of eight hours, followed by a further 88 hours of low power.

Each battery is rated at 2V and has energy storage capacity of 150Ah or 390Ah.

The batteries require no topping-up and are built into the project’s modular transition pieces.

A lengthy construction and integration process of up to two years meant that the batteries also needed to operate successfully after a long period in storage while fully charged, Saft adde

[grupo] 27/6/2016 18:09

Total wins 30pc stake in Qatar's al-Shaheen JV

27 Jun 2016, 3.33 pm GMT

London, 27 June (Argus) — Total has been awarded a 30pc stake in the new joint venture for the 300,000 b/d al-Shaheen offshore Qatar oil field. State-owned QP will retain a 70pc stake.

Total replaces Danish firm Maersk, which will see its 25-year production sharing contract (PSC) for the field expire in mid-2017. QP replaced the PSC with a joint venture in order to maximise state revenue from its largest producing field.

The news comes as a blow to Maersk, with al-Shaheen representing about 40pc of the firm's global crude production. It had hoped to see its contract rolled over or to at least retain its spot in a new joint venture with QP. Total had its PSC for the 22,000 b/d al-Khalij field converted to a 60:40 joint venture with QP in 2013.

With the al-Shaheen joint venture secured, Total continues to prove its commitment to Mideast Gulf crude developments while other majors shy away from the region in the current price environment. Total was the first company to pick up a stake in Abu Dhabi's new 1.6mn b/d Adco oil concession when it secured 10pc in January last year.

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[waldron] 25/6/2016 16:56

EXTRACT


3 Top Big Oil Stocks to Buy Now
The large, integrated oil and gas companies are still selling for for a decent discount, and that should give you an opportunity to profit from Chevron Corporation, Total SA, and ExxonMobil Corporation

Tot Investor Presentation

Image source: Total SA investor presentation.

After a two-year slide in oil prices, investors who were invested in big oil companies were some of the least affected investors in the energy industry. Being the least impacted by oil prices isn't exactly a compliment, though. All of them saw shares decline more than 10% over that time frame.

With the oil market starting to stabilize, however, you may be thinking it's time to take a renewed look at big oil stocks as a way to get a lower risk exposure to an industry that has some room to grow and is still selling at a discount. If that is the case, then the three companies that you should probably focus most of your attention on are Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Total (NYSE:TOT), and ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM). Here's why.
The big catalyst: Chevron

Of all the big oil companies out there, Chevron quite possibly has the largest catalyst for growth waiting in the wings: its Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects. The two projects alone have required about $8 billion annually in capital spending for the past several years, and once on line, they will represent an oil-equivalent production of 340,000 barrels per day. For years, these projects have required an immense amount of capital that have sapped free cash flow. Once on line, these facilities will represent a major shift in cash inflows and outflows that will likely halt Chevron's hemorrhaging of free cash flow over the past three-and-a-half years.

Cvx Cash Neturality Program

Image source: Chevron Corporation investor presentation.

Getting this cash situation back on the right track will likely do wonders for the company's stock. Wall Street has been slightly bearish about Chevron mostly because of its inability to meet capital expenditures and dividend payments with cash flow from operations and has needed to rely on debt to fill the gaps. That is part of the reason why Chevron's shares are trading at a price to tangible book value that is well below its 20-year average. I'm using price to tangible book value here because it is a more consistent long-term valuation metric for companies that have fluctuating earnings from commodity prices.

XOM Price to Tangible Book Value Chart

XOM Price to Tangible Book Value data by YCharts.

Bringing Gorgon and Wheatstone on line should have a major impact on Chevron's bottom line for several years to come. That catalyst and a relatively low valuation suggest that the company's shares could be worth a spot in your portfolio.
The unheralded overachiever: Total

The French oil giant may not be the first name that comes to mind when thinking about big oil stocks. Thanks to the timing of recent investments and moves made by management over the past couple of years, though, the company is set up very well to be one of the better performers in the industry.

Total's recent earnings performance has been nothing short of remarkable when you consider what has happened to crude oil prices over the past year. While so many of its peers saw net income results decline more than 40% in 2015, Total's bottom line only shrank by 18%. The reason it was able to do this was threefold: It increased total production by a whopping 9.5% -- huge by big oil standards; the production it brought on were lower-cost sources; and it reaped the rewards of a multiyear rehabilitation of its refining and downstream operations.

This all led to Total generating an industry-best return on equity of 10%. It should also be noted that Total was the only one of the five integrated major oil companies that generated positive net income from its upstream production in the first quarter of 2016.

Even though the company brought many of its major projects on line in 2015 -- hence the big jump in production -- and management has cut capital spending to $19 billion for 2016, the company's current development schedule still plans to grow production at a rate of 5% or greater annually between 2014 and 2019. What's even more promising is that much of that production growth is based on crude oil prices ranging between $45 to $60 per barrel.

Despite Total's strong recent performance and management's budgetary plans into the next decade, its stock is still trading at around 1.3 times tangible book value. That's well below the company's historical average over the past 20 years and awfully close to the lowest valuation multiple over that time frame. So not only are you getting shares of a company that is looking very strong but you're also getting them at a very good discount.