TotalEnergies CEO says Russia exit will test fellow IOCs
TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne believes his "Anglo-Saxon" competitors promised too much in their strategies to exit their Russian assets, Bloomberg reported March 23.
Pouyanne told French radio station RTL that Shell, BP and others will struggle to divest Russian assets, according to Bloomberg. He refers to the challenge of finding a non-Russian buyer amid the corporate backlash against Moscow, potential sanctions on Russia's oil and gas sector and the ramifications for European energy security.
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"Everybody's telling me that my Anglo-Saxon competitors are leaving," Pouyanne said. "None of my competitors have left Russia, and know how to leave Russia."
TotalEnergies' official policy on winding up its Russian operations is more conservative than the other Western majors. The company confirmed a staged drawdown of its Russian assets on March 22, notably pledging to make no further investments at Novatek's 20mn metric tons/year Arctic LNG-2 project, due on stream in 2023.
However it will retain its stakes in existing projects, arguing that selling holdings to a non-Russian investor would not be possible at this time, and would not impact their operation in any case.
TotalEnergies has to date invested almost $13bn in Arctic LNG-2 and Novatek's operational 17.4mn mt/yr Yamal LNG plant, Pouyanne said. It also has a 19.4% stake in Novatek itself, a 49% share in Novatek's Terneftegaz gas project and 20% in the Zarubezhneft-operated Kharyaga oilfield.
The company's position has come under fire from the Church of England's pension board and NGOs Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. A legal bid from the NGOs in France alleges TotalEnergies is implicated in Russian war crimes, an accusation the company says is "serious" and "unfounded."