Total Energies SE Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Pouyanne said the U.K. and U.S. oil majors such as Shell Plc and BP Plc may be stuck with their Russian assets despite their announced exit from the country to protest the invasion of Ukraine.
Pouyanne mentioned on RTL radio on Wednesday that although rumours are spreading on the exit of his Anglo-Saxon competitors, he said, “None of my competitors has left Russia and knows how to leave Russia.”
However, Total energies has said that it would keep its stakes in companies and hydrocarbon projects in the country, while rejecting criticisms from Greenpeace and the Church of England, since, its allies, Shell and BP haven’t come up with a concrete plan and step on how to leave Russia.
Total Energies, a French company which owns about 19.4% of Novatek PJSC, Russia’s top producer of liquefied gas, holding stakes in Yamal LNG plant and still constructing the Artic LNG 2 project, as well as other projects in the oil and gas fields has mentioned on Tuesday, the 22nd of March 2022 that it will halt further investment in the Artic LNG 2 development.
With the French company total investment of about $13billion in the Russian plants, Pouyanne told RTL that the company has no plan to sell them. Stating that, “These plants will continue to work, whether I leave or not. If I pull out, I will give $13billion to Russia for zero, because nobody wants to buy these plants today.” He went further to ask a rhetorical question where he stated that “Do you want me to abandon assets in Russia to enrich Russians whom we have placed under sanctions?” He posited that he wouldn’t give into it, because it is demagogy.
Pouyanne went further to mention that at the expiration of its contracts with Russia, it will stop the purchase of crude from Russia. While, for gas, unilaterally halting the long-term gas contract would mean that Total would have to pay billion of dollars in damages to the Russian counterparties, unless they are placed under government sanctions.
