The French company unveiled on Wednesday an annual net profit of 20.5 billion dollars (19 billion euros), its absolute record after its 16 billion in 2021.

As if to give pledges, CEO Patrick Pouyanné hinted that he could grant a new rebate at the pump in France.

The exceptional profitability of the major is even better reflected, if we exclude its gradual withdrawal from Russia: without the 14.8 billion in depreciation, it would have generated a net profit of 36.2 billion euros adjusted.

In December, the group ended up distancing itself from its main Russian partner, the gas giant Novatek, while retaining its presence in huge LNG operations in Russian Siberia, including the Yamal LNG project.

In total, the group received $1.5 billion in dividends related to Novatek and Yamal in 2022.

The results of TotalEnergies, with a turnover of 281 billion dollars, were boosted by the strong recovery in demand for oil after the pandemic, and even more, by the gas race which followed the war in Ukraine.

The barrel of Brent, the reference for black gold, has largely crossed the symbolic bar of 102 dollars in 2022 and gas prices in Europe have sometimes been multiplied by 15. "All the environmental parameters have been positive", s Mr. Pouyanné is congratulated.

More than ever, the group is betting on liquefied natural gas (LNG), on which Europe has depended since the closure of the Moscow gas pipelines.

In 2022, the company, which represents 12% of the global LNG market, "fully leveraged its global LNG portfolio", recording a 15% increase in sales, according to its press release.

Everything indicates that LNG will remain hotly contested, with a foreseeable return of Chinese demand, in competition with Europe: “we will still have to fight,” the boss told journalists.

Exceptional dividend

These profits, unveiled in the midst of a climate emergency and a purchasing power crisis, have revived calls to stop the production of hydrocarbons and to tax "superprofits".

During the night, activists from the StopTOTAL collective had put up posters in ten cities in France to denounce "illegitimate profits".

At the opening of the offices, a handful of members of Alternatiba Paris and Friends of the Earth sprayed blood red on the facade of the group's 48-storey tower in La Défense, to denounce a mega-oil project in Uganda/ Tanzania, at the heart of a legal battle.

The police made two arrests.

The multinational is investing more in renewable energies: 5 billion dollars in 2023 (compared to 4 in 2022) out of 16 to 18 billion in total investments.

The profits of oil majors © Cléa PÉCULIER / AFP

But as long as the world "needs it", it continues to develop gas projects like in the United States in Lebanon and Qatar, or oil projects in Africa.

"TotalEnergies disqualifies roadmaps for energy transition based on reducing energy demand", IPCC experts pointed out on Wednesday, including French paleo-climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte in a column on the FranceInfo site.

Unlike the United Kingdom, the French government continues to reject the idea of ​​taxing “superprofits”, contenting itself with the “temporary solidarity contribution” decided by the European Union.

In France, the group claims that it will pay 200 million euros in corporation tax.

"The smaller we are, the bigger we are taxed, the bigger we are, the smaller we are taxed", lambasted the Insoumis deputy François Ruffin on FranceInfo.

Asked by Le Figaro about the controversy surrounding his record profits, Patrick Pouyanné assured him: "I would prefer that TotalEnergies earn 10 billion less and that everyone be a little more reasonable on this subject".

© 2023 AFP