The head of France's Total believes oil majors are well positioned to grow during the oil price downturn but that they should be patient when it comes to mergers and acquisitions as values have not yet fallen far enough.

"My advice is to be patient with M&A," Patrick Pouyanne told a news conference.

The comment comes a day after shares in U.S. firm Apache Corp soared as much as 13 percent following reports it had received and rejected an unsolicited takeover offer from an unidentified company.

On Nov. 8, Bloomberg News reported that Apache, which has operations in Egypt, the North Sea and Texas, had rejected a takeover approach and hired investment bankers from Goldman Sachs to help with a defence.