Business & financial news headlines

Total will not invest in Areva

"After consideration, we will not invest in Areva" reveals Christophe Margerie, CEO and future chairman of Total, in an interview with the first edition of the Journal du Dimanche. After the failure in late December of invitation supply in Abu Dhabi to build two nuclear reactors, which were project stakeholders EDF, Areva, GDF Suez but also Total oil group maintains its draft into nuclear power. But without investment in Areva, whose strategy is now under threat.

"Those who think we lost because of poor organization Franco-French are wrong. (…) Can we make the EPR cheaper without sacrificing safety? This is the real issue "said Christophe Margerie.The EPR French would indeed be 40% more expensive than the South Korean model finally selected by Abu Dhabi.

Needs huge

So as an investor-operator and Total says it wants to enter the nuclear market. In this context, "we want to set up projects with Areva, but we do not exclude mounting other international partnerships," said the CEO.

Asked about the economic outlook for his group in 2010, Christophe de Margerie also appears optimistic. Satisfied with the signing of two important contracts in natural gas, the United States and Algeria, he anticipates the needs of huge new countries: India, China, Middle East and Africa.

United States: enrollment in unemployment at its lowest since September 2008

Good news on employment front in the United States. New entries in unemployment at its lowest since September 2008, to 452,000 in the week ended on December 18. This figure comes after two weeks of up and confirms the downward trend observed since late March in the United States.

Analysts do not expect a decline of this magnitude and had forecast about 470,000 new registrations. The total number of unemployed receiving benefits rose to 5.07 million, a decrease of 127,000 persons over the previous week.

The Department of Labor, which published the statistics, held relative to this development, stating that "this week in particular is extremely difficult to adjust for seasonal variations, because the raw numbers can be very different depending on the configuration calendar year. Clearly, the actual unemployment has probably not declined much.