Total’s top table was the place to be sitting at last night’s Oil and Money dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London.

Delegates kept wandering past to congratulate Andrew Gould (right), the chairman and chief executive of Schlumberger, for being awarded the Petroleum Executive of the Year Award – the first service company to receive this award.

That was certainly not a point lost on Christophe de Margerie. The chairman and CEO of Total – and winner of the prize last year – was there to hand over the award to Mr Gould.

Firmly tongue in cheek, the personable Frenchman told the audience that he had had “a nightmare” the night before – namely that Total, “a major oil and gas company” had to give a prize to “a contractor”. How “embarrassing”.