Stop saying that TotalEnergies is an oil group, it’s a gas group. Its CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, does not content himself with regularly asserting this identity. It has made it a spearhead of its strategy, with the aim of increasing the share of natural gas in its sales to a level close to 50% by 2030. It is not very far from that, the 48% reached in 2022. In 2015, gas accounted for only 33% of the company’s revenues, compared to 65% for oil. The conversion to renewable energies only comes afterwards.
Proof of this commitment to develop gas activities is the repeated investments made in this area. On Monday, the company announced an acquisition in the Cash-Maple gas field in Australia. In July alone, TotalEnergies announced its participation in a $14.8 billion investment in an LNG plant project in Texas, the commissioning of a gas field in Azerbaijan and a strengthening of collaboration with Socotrach for an increase in LNG production and shipments from Algeria…
The stakes in gas are such that several companies generally share the burden of the investments necessary for the development of projects. In the case of Cash-Maple, the amount of the transaction was not disclosed. TotalEnergies specifies taking a 26% stake in what is currently only an operating license in an area of 418 km2 in the Timor Sea (between Australia and Indonesia). Enough to secure supplies from the Ichthys natural gas liquefaction plant in northern Australia, also majority owned by Asian partners of TotalEnergies, including the Japanese Inpex, and by the group of Patrick Pouyanné.
TotalEnergies ranks third in the world for liquefied natural gas (LNG) players, with a market share of around 12%. The sudden halt in Russian gas imports, following the war in Ukraine, changed the situation. LNG imports have returned to the forefront of national issues for European countries.
The long-term commitments of the French giant in the exploitation and marketing of gas reflect a triple conviction shared by the International Energy Agency. On the one hand, the global demand for gas will continue to increase in the years to come, in particular because a quarter of the world’s electricity production depends on it. On the other hand, the molecule brings its share to the ecological transition: emitting half as much CO2 as coal, gas is a transition energy. It is used to supplement and secure the production of electricity in the face of wind and solar energies which produce intermittently. Finally, controlling supplies is an element of energy sovereignty.
Alongside the focus on gas, TotalEnergies is also working to develop its presence in electricity and renewable energies, although to a lesser extent. Thus, in 2030, electricity should represent 15% of group sales, gas from biomass and hydrogen 5%, compared to 50% for gas and 30% for oil. The road to ecological transition is a long road.