Elf Aquitaine

Origins and state ownership

Elf Aquitaine descended from public agencies created to promote French energy autonomy in the 1930s–40s: RAP (1939), SNPA (1941) and BRP (1945) were merged into ERAP in December 1965, and Elf Aquitaine was created in 1966 out of the SNPA line, taking the Elf brand in April 1967. On 1 September 1976 the legal name became SNEA. The French state directed the company through the state holding ERAP and retained its stake until 1994.

Operator of Congo-Brazzaville's oil, 1968–2000

Elf entered Congo-Brazzaville in 1968 and became the principal economic link between France and the Congo; it was the country's major oil operator from the first offshore drilling in 1972. Its entry overlapped with the People's Republic of the Congo's one-party rule and its incorporation of oil revenue into state planning, followed by nationalizations in 1969–70 and the creation of the state-owned Hydro-Congo in 1973. From its near-monopoly position Elf Congo is assessed to have dictated terms: Lutte ouvrière (2001) holds that it lied about the value of crude, bought oil far below market value, loaded 100,000-tonne tankers undeclared for a gain of about 100 million francs, and paid no tax to the Congolese state. In refining and distribution its affiliate Elf Congo SA held stakes, and Elf Aquitaine held 40 percent of the CORAF refinery at Pointe-Noire, with the state-owned Hydro-Congo holding the remaining 60 percent. The 1994 change in that ownership and the March 2001 purchase of Hydro-Congo by Total and Shell show how the state sector was handled afterwards.

Profit split and the extraction mechanism

According to testimony by US ambassador to the Congo James D. Phillips, Elf Aquitaine, supported by France, forced the Congolese government to accept a profit-sharing split of 13 percent against the 51 percent other African countries received. He recounts that Pascal Lissouba sought transparency from Elf and was refused, signed a 150 million dollar deal with the American company Occidental Petroleum, and that Elf was allegedly supplying arms to the opposition.

The 1991 National Conference and the transitional audit

The 1991 National Conference demanded an accounting of Congo's oil revenues, alleging they had been lost to Elf and government corruption. The transitional government then sought an audit of Elf's accounts and got nowhere because Elf refused. Conference speakers also voiced the belief that the ruling party could not have held power so long without French complicity.

Corruption scandal, privatization, absorption

From 1994 to 1996 Elf was at the centre of what was called the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War; English Wikipedia quotes The Guardian that Elf became a private bank for executives who spent 200 million pounds on political favours. The French state sold its stake in 1996, retaining a golden share, which the European Court of Justice ruled illegal in 2002. On 22 March 2000 Total absorbed Elf to form TotalFinaElf, renamed Total SA in 2003 and TotalEnergies in 2021.

Assessment and responsibility

Investigative reporting alleges that Elf-backed oil loans set prices far below market value, that commissions called 'opaque operations' were paid to foreign officials through intermediaries, that abonnements of 1.2 to 4.2 French francs per barrel were set aside for African heads of state, and that Liechtenstein trusts transferred some 64.8 million dollars to Congolese decision-makers between 1989 and 1992. Lutte ouvrière (2001) assessed that Elf plundered African oil for over thirty years with the blessing of French political power, and that the French imperialist leaders from de Gaulle to Chirac, the real sponsors of the pillage, were never troubled by the courts. François-Xavier Verschave saw Elf as a key piece of French neo-colonial practice in Africa. These assessments must be read as encyclopedia description, testimony and partisan evaluation respectively, distinct from documented fact.