France’s TotalEnergies said on Thursday its third-quarter earnings more than doubled to about $9.9 billion, boosted by higher LNG prices and sales.
Adjusted net income of $9.86 billion rose from $4.76 billion last year, while it also slightly increased when compared to the previous quarter of $9.79 billion.
Net income rose 43 percent year-on-year to $6.62 billion, as well as from $5.69 billion in the prior quarter.
“In a context marked by an average Brent price of 100 $/b and an increase in gas prices exacerbated by Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, TotalEnergies leveraged its integrated model, particularly LNG, to generate results in line with previous quarters,” chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said.
He said that TotalEnergies took into account a new impairment of $3.1 billion related to Russia, while the company’s cash flow was $11.7 billion.
“The iGRP (integrated gas, renewables & power) segment reported record adjusted net operating income of $3.6 billion this quarter, up $1.1 billion from the second quarter, and cash flow of $2.7 billion, driven by an average LNG selling price up more than 50 percent compared to the previous quarter and by the strong performance of its trading activities,” Pouyanne said.
Earlier this month, TotalEnergies revealed that its average LNG price had reached $21.51/MMBtu in the July-September period, logging a significant rise when compared to the previous three-month period but also year-on-year.
The price rose about $7.55/MMBtu compared with the previous quarter, while it more than doubled when compared to $9.10/MMBtu in the same period in 2021.
LNG sales up on high European demand
LNG sales increased 5 percent to 10.4 million tonnes in the the third quarter when compared to the same period last year, while production dropped 6 percent year-on-year.
The firm said LNG sales rose year-on-year due to the increase in spot LNG purchases to maximize the use of the company’s regasification capacity in Europe.
Sales dropped from 11.7 million tonnes in the second quarter mainly due to the outage at Freeport LNG in the US, planned maintenance at Ichthys LNG in Australia, and a shutdown of production at Idku LNG in Egypt due to insufficient gas supply, according to TotalEnergies.
In the January-September period, LNG sales rose 16 percent to 35.4 million tonnes.