Total chief dies in Moscow air crash

Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of French oil group Total, died in the early hours of Tuesday morning when a private jet he was travelling in crashed near Moscow.

According to Russian media reports, the landing gear on the light business jet hit a snow-clearing machine at the city's Vnukovo airport.

The pilot attempted to turn the aircraft round while an engine was on fire but the jet crashed on the runway, killing Mr de Margerie - the head of Europe's third-largest oil company - and the three crew members on board. The driver of the snow-removal machine was seriously injured.

Debris from the aircraft was scattered up to 200 metres from the crash site, according to reports by local media but not confirmed by the company. The head of the airport's press service told journalists that black box flight recorders from the aircraft had been found and retrieved.

The tragedy follows a period of heightened tensions between Russia and the west over Ukraine, with Total's joint venture with Russia's Lukoil to explore shale oil in Siberia scuppered by western sanctions.

Mr de Margerie has been sympathetic to Russia and a defender of Total's interests in the region. In a recent interview with the Financial Times he struck an upbeat note, saying that "it was not the first time there was a crisis between Europe and Russia".

A statement on the company's website said: "Total confirms with deep regret and great sadness that chairman and CEO Christophe de Margerie died just after 10pm (Paris time) on October 20 in a private plane crash at Vnukovo airport in Moscow, following a collision with a snow-removal machine.

It added: "The thoughts of the management and employees of the group go out to Christophe de Margerie's wife, children and loved ones as well as to the families of the four other victims."

Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, said France had lost "a great captain of industry and a patriot". He praised Mr de Margerie as "a business leader out of the ordinary who transformed Total into a global giant".

The 63-year-old, who was known affectionately in Paris circles as Big Moustache - a tribute both to his facial hair and his larger than life personality - was a hugely respected figure in the energy industry as well as in French business and politics.

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He argued in 2009 that world oil production was unlikely ever to exceed 89m barrels per day - a prediction that has been confounded by the US shale boom, with world production now heading for 93m b/d - but accurately highlighted the difficulty of increasing oil production in many parts of the world.

He was unapologetic about the need for oil companies to work in countries even when the threat of sanctions or war made other executives less willing to engage in, or even talk about, such sensitive areas.

His answer was simply that otherwise the lights would go out. For example, he warned policy makers going to a climate change conference in Denmark in 2009 not to leave energy security off the table. "We also have a concern over energy access. If you take only one [concern with you] we are dead and we don't want to die," he said. "Carbon is not the enemy, carbon is life."

As well as some detractors, Mr de Margerie had many admirers in the energy business and a few confidants, with whom he could talk for hours, often over a cigar and whiskey. Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Qatar's former deputy prime minister and energy minister, was one of them. He often joked that the two would eventually write a book about their travels.

In spite of such close relationships, many of which became friendships - especially in the Middle East where Mr de Margerie spent an important part of his career before becoming chief executive - he had little luck in getting rulers to open their oilfields to Total, as he insisted, for example in Iraq and Iran, that only commercial deals that worked for both sides were sustainable. He rarely - if ever - held a grudge against those he cared about, but could not stand false pomposity.

His travels often took Mr de Margerie away from his family, a hole he realised only when his grandchildren were born.

He rarely admitted he regretted anything, but he said: "I used to think quality time with my children was good enough, but quantity matters."

He joined Total straight from college in 1974. It was often reported that he liked saying he chose Total because it was the company that was closest to his house.

He quickly worked his way up to become head of the company's Middle East operations, which took him into several political hotspots. He was also head of exploration and production and was an early advocate of shale gas, before being appointed chief executive in 2007.

Mr de Margerie was implicated in a scandal over kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq during the UN's oil-for-food programme. He always maintained his innocence.

Born in 1951, Mr de Margerie was a member of the elite Taittinger family, founders of the champagne house. He was the black sheep, preferring a career in the oil industry to the refined atmosphere of fine wines.

Additional reporting by Ed Crooks in New York, Hugh Carnegy in Paris, and Neil Buckley in Moscow

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