French fossil fuels giant TotalEnergies said Wednesday it will abide by a European ban on imports of Russian liquefied natutral gas (LNG) due to come into force next year and said it can easily replace the supplies.
The company still holds a 20-percent stake in the massive Yamal natural gas field in Siberia and ships LNG from there to Europe.
“We’ve always clearly stated that we’ll follow regulations which are adopted,” chief executive Patrick Pouyanne told journalists.
“We’ll no longer have the right to import LNG from Russia” into Europe, he added, “but we’ll remain a shareholder in Yamal”.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most Western companies have sold off their Russian operations and holdings, or at least isolated them, as Western sanctions have made trading in most goods difficult.
Pouyanne confirmed that TotalEnergies continues to receive “dividends” from its stake in Yamal, but cannot incorporate them into its earnings. The funds remain in Russia, he added.
While EU nations cut their imports of Russian natural gas by pipeline, some of that was replaced by LNG imports.
Last December, EU states and lawmakers reached an agreement to ban all Russian natural gas imports from the autumn of 2027 in order to deny Moscow a key source of funding for its war effort in Ukraine.
Russian gas has fallen from 45 percent of total EU natural gas imports in 2021 to 19 percent in 2024.
“We were criticised for continuing to import (Russian) LNG, but we did it to ensure supply security and avoid prices rising sky high” during the energy crisis provoked after the start of the war in 2022, said Pouyanne.
Numerous new LNG projects are set to go online in 2027 and 2028, which should ensure better supplies and lower prices, something Pouyanne said was “good news for European consumers”.
This means TotalEnergies “can do without this LNG” from Russia, he added.
Earlier Wednesday the company reported a 17 percent drop in net profit last year to $13.1 billion due to declining oil and gas prices.
The company, which has faced criticism from environmental campaigners over its continued focus on climate-warming fossil fuels, has designated natural gas as one of its strategic priorities.
