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* Norway's Statoil already sold 10 pct stake to BP, SOCAR
* Turkey's Botas in talks to take on Total's stake
* Lower Russian gas price makes new gas investmentsdifficult
* Total to focus its Azeri business on the Absheron gasfield
By Henning Gloystein and Oleg Vukmanovic
LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - France's Total plans tosell its 10 percent stake in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II gasfield, sources with knowledge of the matter said, the secondmajor to cut exposure to a project aimed to provide analternative to Russian gas in Europe.
"Total's strategy is to divest from projects where it has aminority stake and favour those where it is the operator," oneof the sources said on Friday.
A spokesman for Total declined to comment.
A representative of Turkish state pipeline firm Botasconfirmed it was in talks to buy Total's sake in the project. Botas is developing the pipeline section to pump Azeri gas intoTurkey and onward towards the European Union.
"The acquisition of a 10 percent stake from Total iscommercially profitable," the representative said.
Analysts said Total's move was probably a result of lowerRussian gas prices, which made investment in expensive new gassources less attractive.
Russia's Gazprom has granted price reductions andrepayments to customers across Europe, including Germany's RWE and E.ON, Italy's ENI and Edison as well as and France's GDF Suez, in order tomake its gas more attractive against rising competition.
At the same time, European gas demand has been weak due tothe region's slow economic growth and to competition fromcheaper coal in the power generation sector.
"Facing weak demand and high (Russian) supply, prices havegone down 15 percent in the last two months. This will makealternative supplies more difficult to arrange when hub pricesare below 60 pence per therm," said Thierry Bros, senior gasanalyst at French bank Societe General.
TOTAL FOLLOWS STATOIL
Total would be following Norway's Statoil, whichcut its stake in the project from 25.5 percent to 15.5 percentlast December in a sale to Azeri state energy firm SOCAR and BP, the project's technical operator, for $1.45 billion.
From around 2019, the estimated $28 billion Shah Deniz IIproject plans to supply 16 bcm of gas per year, with 10 bcmearmarked for Europe and 6 bcm for Turkey.
The sources said Total's withdrawal from the Shah Denizproject would come as no surprise because the French major aimsto focus its Azeri efforts on the Absheron gas field, in whichit owns a 40 percent stake. Exploratory drilling found 150-300billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas resources, and the find wasdeclared commercial in 2012.
Total has taken a more active approach to managing itsbusiness in recent years, buying and selling assets morefrequently and focusing on projects for which it can be theoperator.
The group had sold $13 billion worth of assets by the end of2013 under a programme to sell $15-$20 billion total between2012 and 2014, a target it hopes to beat this year.
