And Christophe de Margerie passes on

Christophe de Margerie died on October 20, 2014 just after his private plane crash at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, following a collision with a snow removal machine. Four people were found dead at the scene of the accident, including three crew member and Christophe de Margerie.

Margerie was born in Mareuil-sur-Lay, France, on 6 August 1951. De Margerie grew up in a family of diplomats and business leaders. He was the grandson of Pierre Taittinger, founder of Taittinger champagne and the luxury goods dynasty.

Margerie began his career at Total straight out of university in 1974, joining the Executive Committee as the President of E&P in 1999.  He then became Senior Executive Vice President of Exploration & Production of the new TotalFinaElf group in 2000. In January 2002 he became President of E&P, and was made up to CEO in February 2007. From 21 May 2010, he served as Chairman of the company.

Margerie, stood out among top executives for his love of a joke, his big bushy moustache and the fact he spent his whole career at one company.

De Margerie was often outspoken, but never disagreeable. He was dismissed as flaky by some peers. He was simply an industry original who refused to observe the accepted decorum. “We all think the same. It’s just a question of whether we say it,” he once told a reporter.

The ultimate deal man

In France, where he was a scion of the champagne-making Taittinger family, de Margerie was called Big Moustache in honor of his unruly whiskers. But his legacy includes taking Total into the frontiers of the new oil world, including Iraqi Kurdistan, French Guiana, Tajikistan and of course, for his biggest play, deeper into Russia.

De Margerie unapologetically made deals in controversial places and many of his competitors ended up following in his tracks. This occasionally got him into trouble.

In May 2013, Total paid $398 million to settle US allegations that it bribed an Iranian official; French prosecutors recommended charges against de Margerie himself before they were ultimately dropped.

A court last year also dismissed charges that he unlawfully did business with Iraq under Saddam Hussain.

In May this year, he was one of the few western oil executives who, at least at first, rejected Washington pressure to shun Vladimir Putin’s regime. “My message to Russia is simple—it is business as usual,” he said.

He was also implicated in allegations of corruption during the UN’s “oil-for-food” programme in Iraq which led to eight years of court procedures in Paris which ended when he and all other accused were found not guilty in 2013.

Margerie recently had to contend with a one-off tax sting on oil inventories in the French budget which could cost Total around $170 million, and is continuing negotiations with Gazprom over the Shtokman gas field, one of the largest in the world.

The controversy of his death

The controversy in his life trailed him to his death. Sources from the Russian Investigative Committee report that they are currently weighing four potential explanations for the accident: pilot error, dispatcher error, misconduct on the part of the snowplow driver, or weather conditions – some parts of the Moscow region were shrouded in fog that night.

The investigation released a statement claiming that the snowplow driver, Vladimir Martynenko, had been intoxicated. The plane crash at Vnukovo occurred when the wing of the private Falcon 50 jet collided with the snowplow, which, according to the media “was sitting at the intersection of two runways, in a no-access area.”

Russian prosecutors detained four Moscow airport workers and denied bail to the driver of a snow plough. Russia’s investigative committee has moved quickly to detain those it says might be responsible for the crash, which killed Christophe de Margerie in a tragedy which has done little to improve Russia’s reputation for poor air safety.

The chief executive of Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and his deputy resigned over the crash, but some critics have accused investigators of trying to find a scapegoat by accusing the driver of the snow plough, 60-year-old Vladimir Martynenko, of being drunk.

They had also detained the head of flights at the airport, Roman Dunayev, dispatcher-trainee Svetlana Krivsun as well as Vnukovo’s dispatcher Alexander Kruglov.

His mark on the sands of time

Despite his shortcomings, under his guidance, Total sped up its investments in oil exploration to reach ambitious growth targets while restructuring its activities in France, including closing its Dunkirk refinery in 2010.

Frank Uzuegbunam