Total Explosion Trial Comes as Record Profits Sour Public Image

By Heather Smith and Tara Patel

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Total SA, France’s biggest company, will be fighting more than criminal charges when its trial over a 2001 factory explosion opens. It may also have to counter public resentment of record oil profits at a time of economic crisis.

On Sept. 21, 2001, a Total-owned chemicals plant in Toulouse, France, exploded, killing 31 people in a blast that measured 3.4 on the Richter scale. Total and a former factory manager face charges of manslaughter and property destruction. The trial starting today in Toulouse comes the same month Total reported a record 13.9 billion euros ($17.8 billion) in adjusted net profit for 2008.

“The public is already having trouble digesting the company’s announcement of record profits right in the middle of an economic crisis,” said Chicuong Dang, an analyst at KBL Richelieu Gestion, which has about $5 billion under management. He added that “Total is operating in a sector that isn’t exactly environmentally friendly and is inherently riskier than other industries.”

Prosecutors found the blast was the result of an ammonium nitrate chemical mix. Total’s AZF Grande Paroisse de Toulouse and Serge Biechlin were charged with manslaughter and property destruction. Fines could add up to 300,000 euros ($379,000).

Biechlin may face as much as three years in jail if convicted. They deny the allegations, saying tests by Total in the Netherlands, Siberia and the U.S. haven’t found a clear cause of the blast.

“The scientific community in Toulouse is divided about the exact causes of the explosion,” said Marie-Helene Manero, a chemical engineer who was at a school across the street where she teaches when the blast occurred. Still, the trial “will help people turn the page, do their mourning.”

Prosecutors will be joined by 1,600 civil parties who may speak about the blast’s impact on their lives. Almost 2 billion euros have already been given to victims, payments that don’t “mean culpability, just humanity,” Total lawyer Daniel Soulez- Lariviere said in an interview at his Paris offices.

“Criminal trials allow civil parties a forum that’s not granted in civil trials,” said Stephane Bonifassi, a lawyer in Paris who isn’t involved in the case. Allowing so many participants “turns the trial into a parade of mourning.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Heather Smith in Paris at hsmith26@bloomberg.net and; Tara Patel in Paris at tpatel2@bloomberg.net.