Reuter: Total Shares Weaken For Dea

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Subject: Reuter: Total Shares Weaken For Dealing With SLORC

Total Shares Weaken For Dealing With SLORC 

    PARIS, July 18 (Reuter) - Shares in French energy group Total fell on
Thursday amid concerns about the company's involvement in Burma through a
pipeline project, brokers said.
     "There's a lot of arbitrage with people selling Total in favour of
Elf-Aquitaine," the other major French oil group, a broker said.
     Another broker said the weakness in Total's stock was linked to the
company's project in Burma and the sale on Thursday by a major Danish
pension fund of its stake in Total.
     Shares in Total were down 3.5 francs, or 0.97 percent, at 357.50 by
midmorning while Elf's stock was up 0.90 franc, or 0.25 percent, at 357.90.
The bourse's CAC index was up 0.83 percent.
     Danish fund Kommunernes Pensionsforsikring said on Thursday it sold
its 60 million crown ($10 million) shareholding in Total to protest against
its involvement in a billion-dollar Burmese pipeline project.
     "Everyone is free to buy or sell our shares," said a spokesman for
Total. He had no other comment.
     Total and Unocal own 31 percent and 28 percent of the 60 km pipeline
project designed to transport gas from the Yadana field, 70 km off the
Burmese coast in the Andaman Sea.
     Within the European Union, Denmark has been the driving force for
sanctions against Burma following the death in prison on June 22 of James
Leander Nichols, its unaccredited honorary consul.
     Breweries Carlsberg and Heineken both announced earlier this month
they were ending business dealings in Burma.
     Burmese democracy campaigner and Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
called in a smuggled video on Thursday for international sanctions to be
imposed on Burma to force political change.
     "What we want are the kind of sanctions that will make it quite clear
that economic change in Burma is not possible without political change,"
Suu Kyi said in the video, made public by members of the European
Parliament.
  ($1-5.737 Danish Crown)
KT
ISBDA