The reorganization, which entails making the distribution of petrol independent from refineries, is expected to be announced during the autumn and seeks to extract cost savings, Les Echos wrote in an early release of its Friday edition.
At Total, no one was immediately available to comment.
Total petrochemicals has nearly 6,000 employees worldwide, according to the company’s website, and the division’s main product is polymers, used to make plastic products. The refinery business makes fuels or liquefied petroleum gas.
The reorganization would be Total’s biggest since the world’s fifth-largest private-sector oil company created specialty chemical maker Arkema in 2004, Les Echos said.
It would also follow Chevron, the world’s third-largest private-sector oil company, which combined its chemicals and refining operations last year before a restructuring in which it cut 2,800 jobs and sold its British refinery to Valero.
Mike Wirth, head of the combined Chevron downstream division, said in May he expected this year’s rise in refiners’ profit margins to be brief because of the growing amount of surplus refining capacity worldwide.
