The CEO of French oil giant Totalenergies, Patrick Pouyanné, sees the global turmoil in energy markets as an opportunity for the company to increase earnings, despite around 15 percent of its oil and gas production being exposed to the conflict in the Middle East. He said this at an energy forum, reports the Financial Times.
Pouyanné points to Totalenergies’ integrated operations in production, refining and trading as an advantage in turbulent markets. Among other things, the company has continued to deliver liquefied natural gas to customers despite gas volumes having declined by around 10 percent.
The company’s profit rose 47 percent during the first half of the year to 11.4 billion dollars. Totalenergies has also decided to increase share buybacks to 2.5 billion dollars during the final three months of the year.
Totalenergies is also aiming to increase production to 3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030. According to Pouyanné, investors’ focus has also once again turned to oil companies’ reserves after such assets received less attention during 2020-2022.
