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Total CEO Eyed Anadarko Assets for a Year Before $8.8 Billion Deal

Total CEO Eyed Anadarko Assets for a Year Before $8.8 Billion Deal

(Bloomberg) -- Total SA had an eye on Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s assets in Africa for over a year, Total Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said.

So, as Occidental Petroleum Corp. CEO Vicki Hollub raised the stakes in a bidding war for Anadarko with Chevron Corp., Pouyanne made his move.

“It was just a matter of sending an email to my colleague,” he said. “It was an Oxy decision. Total is just benefiting from the determination of Oxy, and I thank Vicki to have done it.”

Total bought the assets from Occidental for $8.8 billion in Pouyanne’s biggest deal yet, cementing the French oil major’s position as a leading producer in Africa. The purchase included a giant liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique. Pouyanne said that Total had already held some talks with Anadarko.

“It was not a lot of creativity to think that these assets were not fitting well for Oxy,” he said. “We were part of the solution for her to win.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Cunningham in Washington at scunningha10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Carlos Caminada, Peter Blumberg

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