re oil news/TOTAL & Elf (France)

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Following the Amoco-BP, Mobil-Exxon mergers, there is a powerful,
staggeringly awesome tremor rocking the entire world's oil and gas
energy industry which will effect every company player on the market.
Today's weekend editions of the Wall Street Journal Europe and the
London Financial Times are already talking about a future TOTAL/Elf
merger. If and when that happens, it will decidedly effect the strategy
of the Free Burma Movement and bring more clearly into focus a united
french foreign policy. 

>From the Wall Street Journal Europe "So what's the next most likely
European oil merger in the offing? Investment bankers point to French
rivals Elf and Total. 'They've got no government ownership (though they
are virtually french govt-backed companies through politics, and
institutional shareholders sic), and giant head offices within 200 yards
of each other in Paris,' one banker says. "It doesn't take rocket
science to know that one day that will happen.'