Face “to the escalation of the conflict” in Ukraine, TotalEnergies announced on Tuesday, March 22, its renouncement of any purchase of Russian oil or petroleum products. The French hydrocarbon giant, criticized for its choice to keep its activities in Russia in the midst of a conflict with Ukraine, will not renew its current contracts. But this decision does not have an immediate effect. It will be effective “as soon as possible”specifies the press release, that is to say at the latest at the end of the year.
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The company had already decided to put an end to its speculative oil operations. This time it concerns long-term supply contracts. To justify this decision, TotalEnergies invokes the worsening of the situation in Ukraine by condemning again, “Russia’s military aggression”. The group also explains that this withdrawal is possible because it has found other sources to satisfy European energy demand. In particular, it imported oil for a German refinery and Russian diesel which represents, for example, a quarter of the diesel consumed in France.
TotalEnergies will thus replace Russian supplies with those of other countries, notably Saudi Arabia. OPEC has indeed agreed to increase its production. This is not the first step back from TotalEnergies in Russia: under pressure, the company had already announced that it was freezing its future investments in the country.
By ending oil purchases, TotalEnergies is he preparing his complete withdrawal from Russia? No, because the company remains dependent on Russian gas as explained by Patrick Pouyané, the CEO, on RTL, Wednesday March 23.“I know how to replace this oil and this diesel” russian but “gas, I don’t know how to do it” he indicated. Admittedly, the oil group is not directly a gas operator in Russia – and she points out that there are only three employees left today – but in terms of capital, on the other hand, it remains very present.
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The giant intends to keep its shares in the Russian companies that own the gas fields. And TotalEnergies explains that by selling these shares, the company would fall into the hands of Russian investors, implied to be linked to the Kremlin. Moreover, it continues to honor its Russian gas import contracts, in particular because unlike Russian oil, Europe has not yet found a way to do without it.
The slowness of the French giant to leave Russia, unlike other groups such as BP or Shell, is explained by the fact that it has bet deeply on Russia and its gas. TotalEnergies is, in fact, more of a gas than an oil group. It has invested more than 40 billion euros in two huge natural gas fields beyond the polar circle and with promising profitability. A strategy desired by its ex-CEO, Christophe de Margerie, who died in a plane crash in Moscow – the French businessman had become a personal friend of Vladimir Putin – and that the war decided on by the Russian president puts back deep into question today.
This gas bend “is absolutely essential to follow the decarbonization trajectory in which we are committed” TotalEnergies, points out Patrice Geoffron, professor of economics at the University of Paris Dauphine. According to him, this case only highlights, once again, the European Union’s dependence on Russian gas: “All the way in which we envisaged at European level to decarbonize during the decade, with very high ambitions – 55% greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – all of this will have to be overhauled. “