France’s TotalEnergies, one of the world’s largest LNG players, will continue to make big investments in the company’s LNG business under a new strategy that excludes its operations in Russia.
TotalEnergies holds a 10 percent stake in the Arctic LNG 2 development, as well as a 20 percent in Novatek’s Yamal LNG project and a 19.4 percent interest in Novatek.
In March, TotalEnergies said it would no longer provide capital and book proven reserves for the Arctic LNG 2 project due to the uncertainty created by the technological and financial sanctions on the ability to carry out the development.
After that, the firm said it would book a $4.1 billion impairment charge on Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project.
In a new strategy presented to investors on Wednesday, TotalEnergies excluded its operations in Russia.
The firm said its capital expenditure would grow to $14-18 billion per year over 2022-25 from $13-16 billion previously.
TotalEnergies said it would further invest in solar and wind, energy savings, LNG, and low-emission oil projects.
Qatar, US, PNG, and Mozambique
According to a presentation posted on TotalEnergies’ website, new opportunities in Qatar, US, PNG, and Mozambique would fuel the company’s LNG growth post 2027.
These include the giant Qatari LNG expansion projects, NFE and NFS, in which the company bought stakes, second Cameron phase in the US, ECA in Mexico, PNG’s Papua LNG, and the Mozambique project.
TotalEnergies claims it has become the leading exporter of US LNG and expects to have a 13.5 mtpa offtake in 2025 thanks to partnership with Sempra on Cameron Phase 2 and ECA.
As per the Mozambique project, TotalEnergies declared force majeure on the giant LNG project in April last year following new attacks, and withdrew all personnel from the site.
The company previously planned to launch the 12.8 mtpa development in 2024. With this new expectation post 2027, the project could be delayed for about three years, but the restart of works still remains unclear.
In total, these new projects would add about 10.5 million mt per year of LNG production capacity to the company’s portfolio, TotalEnergies said.
The company aims to boost its LNG production by 40 percent from 2021 to 2030.
TotalEnergies also said that its managed LNG volumes would reach 40 million mt this year, excluding Russia.
In the first half of this year, LNG sales rose 22 percent to 24.9 million mt, with 60 percent of these landing in Europe.
European regas capacity
TotalEnergies currently has more than 18 million mt of regasification capacity in Europe, with plans to increase it beyond 20 million mt, according to the presentation.
US LNG exports to Europe surged this year due to high gas prices and the lack of Russian pipeline gas supplies.
TotalEnergies sent mainly US LNG volumes to European terminals this year. These include facilities in France, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Moreover, the firm plans to install two floating storage and regasification units or FSRUs in Europe.
The first project is in France’s Le Havre, while for the other one it plans to charter one FSRU to Deutsche Regas for the Lubmin terminal in Germany.
In addition to FSRUs, TotalEnergies has more than 20 LNG carriers in its fleet, the presentation shows.