The European Commission has granted clearance under the EU Merger Regulation to the acquisition of joint control of two newly created companies constituting a joint venture (JVs) by Total S.A. of France and Sonatrach, Algeria. The operation was examined under the simplified merger review procedure.

On July 8th 2008, the Commission received a notification of a proposed concentration by which the undertakings Total SA (‘Total’, France) and Société nationale pour la recherche, la production, le transport, la transformation et la commercialisation des hydrocarbures SPA (‘Sonatrach’, Algeria) acquire joint control of two newly created companies constituting a joint venture (‘JVs’, Algeria) by way of purchase of shares.

The newly created companies will be entitled to the development, construction and exploitation of a petrochemical complex in Arzew in Algeria, which will involve an ethane cracker and three lines of production:  low-density polyethylene (LD-polyethylene), linear low density polyethylene (LLDE) C4 and C6 and glycol.

The relevant business activities of the companies concerned are:

• Total (Public, NYSE:TOT):  integrated activities in the energy and in the chemical sector,. The fourth largest publicly-traded integrated international oil and gas company (based on market capitalization in dollars, December 2007) and a world-class chemicals manufacturer, Total operates in more than 130 countries and has 96, 400 employees.
• Sonatrach: Algerian public company active in the research, exploitation, transport, transformation and  marketing of hydrocarbons and its derivatives.
• JVs: companies active in the petrochemical sector.