The French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies announced on Thursday July 23 a doubling of its net profit in the 2nd quarter, to 5.4 billion dollars (compared to 2.7 billion a year earlier), boosted by the high prices of hydrocarbons linked to the conflict in the Middle East.
“In a high price environment linked to the conflict in the Middle East, TotalEnergies is taking advantage of its integrated model and its diversification to post an adjusted net profit (an indicator monitored by analysts) of $6 billion in the second quarter,” said the group’s CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, quoted in a press release. Over the first half of the year, the company recorded a net profit of $11.2 billion, a very sharp increase of 72% year-on-year.
The group recorded a very strong increase in its net profit in the first quarter, driven by the surge in oil and gas prices as well as its trading activities, in the wake of the start of the war between the United States and Iran. The group’s quarterly net profit thus reached 5.8 billion dollars (4.96 billion euros at the end of April), an increase of 51% over one year, an exceptional performance which had revived calls for the taxation of “superprofits”.
In the second quarter, the group’s oil and gas production benefited from organic growth of more than 4% year-on-year, linked to the ramp-up of projects started a year ago in Brazil, the United States and Libya which “partially offset the impact of production losses in the Middle East of around 210 kboe/d (210,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, editor’s note) on average over the quarter”.
Although part of this production could not be removed, “given the difficulties of access to the Strait of Hormuz”, the Exploration-Production branch – where the group achieves most of its profitability – achieved a growing adjusted net operating profit in the second quarter, at $3.2 billion.
