TOTAL SA

[cd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Some TOTAL company financial figures.

Front page French financial news: Untangling the web of the french state
administered economy is a tax-payers burden. TOTAL's shareholder, GAN,
(Groupe des Assurances Nationales), with 1.5% of the share capital, the
French state insurance giant, is handing French taxpayers a 2O billion
franc ($3.9 billion) bill, due largely to heavy losses incurred from the
depressed french real estate market. As a stop-gap measure, the French
government pledged to immediately inject nearly a billion dollars into
the GAN. GAN's shares have been trading wildly over speculation of
today's announced losses, and the GAN share yesterday suffered is
heaviest drop in recent weeks, down 5.4%.

Note: a previous posting on TOTAL share participation did not
account for shareholder changes effective last August 31,1996.
To date, the French state holds .90 %,AGF 1.9 % (Assurance 
General de France),  Cogema, the state nuclear power consortium, 5.60 %,
CDR 1.8 (Centre de Realisation) which absorbed the french state bank
Credit Lyonnais' 3.1 %,
Societe Generale, the private bank, 3.10 %. Lyonnais des Eaux swapped
its .9 % share for TOTAL's stake in Lyonnais des Eaux,so they are now
out, 
though Jerome MONOD, Lyonnais' CEO, is on TOTAL's board of directors.

Thus you can see that the French government virtual stake is much more
than 
 .9%, more like 10 %. TOTAL employees hold 2.40 %, up from .7.

For further financial information:

TOTAL -paris
Michel Hourcard
tel 33 1 41 35 52 29



TOTAL-New York
Robert Hammond
212 969 2810
Robert Hammond

For press information 
Tel: 41 35 34 71 

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Meanwhile, ROYAL DUTCH SHELL has posted 10 billion dollars
in net profits for 1996 (53 billion francs). TOTAL postsed
less than 10 % that, at 5.3 billion francs, slightly
less than a billion dollars, trailing the French energy giant, ELF at 7
billion francs
or, $1.2 billiàn  and TEXACO with 10.7 billion francs, or nearly $2
billion.

dawn star
EuroBurmanet
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/total