UPDATE 1-Total CEO sees Saudi refinery project over $10 bln

(adds comments from de Margerie)

PARIS, May 16 (Reuters) - Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie on Friday estimated that a project to build a new 400,000 barrels per day refinery in Saudi Arabia will cost more than $10 billion.

Total had originally pegged the cost of the plant, in which the French oil major will have a 37.5 percent stake and Saudi Aramco the rest, at $6 billion.

"Jubail is a project at over $10 billion," de Margerie told a shareholders meeting in response to a question on Total's investment plans.

He later declined to give journalists a more precise estimate.

"We are about to start a bidding period and we do not want to send signals to contractors that would make prices surge in an environment where prices are already sharply higher.

"We don't want to give them a target, but you know this is a project of more than $10 billion."

State oil giant Saudi Aramco said on Wednesday that it and Total would go ahead with plans to build the Jubail refinery, which it expects to start up at the end of 2012.

Equipment and labour shortages have pushed costs up globally in the energy sector, raising industry concerns about whether the new Saudi plants would be built.