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PARIS, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Total TOTF.PA is not looking to make new investments in Myanmar but it does not intend to leave the Asian country, the head of the French oil and gas giant said in an interview published in Le Monde on Friday.
“Investing in this country today would be a provocation,” Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said after non-governmental organisations said the presence of energy companies in Myanmar helped prop up the military junta and its hold over the country.
“We have a dialogue with NGOs when they accept it, we listen to them, but they do not decide what the group does. Total will not withdraw (from Myanmar),” de Margerie said.
The world’s fourth-largest Western oil group was put on the spot last week by French President Nicolas Sarkozy who called for a freeze on investment by French companies in Myanmar, where protesters were killed in a crackdown on peaceful monk-led protests against the junta’s rule. [ID:nL27895657]
Total is one of the biggest foreign investors in Myanmar where its joint venture earns the junta hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to the Burma Campaign UK Web site.
“We have heard the head of state’s message, which was clearly aimed at us,” de Margerie said. “Our investments (in Myanmar) go back to the 1990s and there’s no plan for new ones.”
De Margerie added while some NGOs had asked Total to leave the country, others deemed the French group’s presence “useful.”
“In the past, we have intervened strongly with the junta to avoid excesses,” he said, also rejecting claims by Myanmar refugees that Total was involved in forced labour of workers in building a pipeline in the country, formerly known as Burma.
“I repeat it: there is no forced labour in our facilities,” de Margerie said.
Belgian prosecutors reopened on Monday an inquiry into alleged crimes against humanity by Total in Myanmar.
De Margerie said the Yanada project, a natural gas field in which Total has a 31 percent stake, generated 350 million euros in taxes for Myanmar.
IRAN PRESENCE
On Iran, de Margerie repeated that rising costs and geopolitics held the key to Total’s decision to invest in the multi-billion dollar Pars LNG project.
Asked whether there was any pressure from the United States on Total to pull out of the country, de Margerie said: “Very strong (pressure). But I don’t have any from France.”
“If a company like ours had to listen to these countries which decide what is good and what is bad, where would we be?” he added, drawing a parallel to the situation in Libya where Total has been present “before, during, and after the crisis.”
De Margerie also said he did not believe in imminent U.S. military action in Iran.
“If we believed this, I would immediately ask for our staff to be repatriated.”
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