Total Energies hoovers up £650m dividends from Russian assets
Total Energies received nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars ($748m or £647m) in dividends from Russian assets during the first nine months of the year.
The French fossil fuel giant’s finance chief Jean-Pierre Sbraire revealed the company received around $349 million in dividends from its Yamal LNG venture in the third quarter, and $368 million from its Novatek shareholding in the second quarter.
Unlike London-based rivals BP and Shell, TotalEnergies has held on to several investments in Russia, including minority stakes in Novatek, Yamal and Arctic LNG 2.
He confirmed the group still has $6bn of capital employed in Russia after writing down around $11 billion in the first nine months of the year.
This included a new impairment of $3.1bn – which it outlined was related to Russia.
The company has faced sustained criticism over its sluggish withdrawal from Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Its overall Russia write-down is among the largest booked by Western companies however, it is not as big as BP’s more than $25bn impairment for exiting the country and has
Last month, Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and chief executive, confirmed the company has has “no future with Russia” and was looking to branch out its investment plans to Qatar and the US.
The admission of its continued lucrative Russian operations comes as Total Energies continued profits run across the oil and gas sector this morning, recording a sharp jump its third quarter profits.
Earnings during the three-month window clocked in at $9.86bn, which was above even its record second quarter performance of $9.8bn and nearly double its total of $4.77bn for the same period in 2021.
The group even outperformed rival energy firm, which reported reported third quarter profits of $9.45bn – with cash flow from operations clocking in at £10.76bn, for the three months of summer trading.