OREANDA-NEWS. March 03, 2011. Dmitry Medvedev met with Chief Executive Officer of French oil and gas company Total Christophe de Margerie. The meeting was attended by Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom Alexei Miller.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: I am glad to see you once again, Mr de Margerie. I know that you have come to Russia on serious business, that your contacts with Gazprom have taken on a solid long-term foundation now and you are launching major joint projects. I wish you success in these undertakings. Your group of companies and France in general are important strategic partners for us.

A lot of change is taking place on the market right now, but the relations among the major players always have a big impact on the overall energy stability and energy security in the world, and play a significant part too in developing large investment projects. I wish you success.

CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF TOTAL CHRISTOPHE DE MARGERIE (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr President. We have met on a number of occasions over these last years, but this is the first time in Moscow. This is my fault. I should come here more often.

I want to thank you for all of our past meetings. We feel that Russia and you personally above all, have always supported our cooperation with Russian partners. We have many partners here, one of which is here today – Gazprom – represented by its chairman, Mr Miller.

You personally asked me to be more active and invest more money in Russia. Recent events have shown how right you were. The upheavals taking place in a number of the oil and gas producing countries now send a signal to investors to come to Russia, because Russia offers much safer environment for investment.

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: I hope that you will now have more reasons and occasions to come to Moscow.