TotalEnergies sticks to share buyback plans despite net income drop
TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said the company had allocated nearly one-third of its capital expenditure to low-carbon technologies, with the remainder spent on oil and gas.
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TotalEnergies on Thursday posted a 35% fall in third quarter adjusted net income from last year’s record high, hurt by a drop in energy prices, but maintained its share buyback operation as conflicts push oil prices back up.
The French energy company’s adjusted net income stood at $6.5 billion, down from the year-earlier $10 billion but just beating an analyst forecast of $6.4 billion, according to a consensus established from LSEG data.
Second quarter adjusted net income was $5 billion.
TotalEnergies confirmed $9 billion in share buybacks for the full year.
Its shares dipped 0.34% in early trading.
Profits were buoyed by the company’s increase in renewable capacity and integration as well as persistently high oil prices, despite crude falling from a decade-plus high last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Oil prices remained buoyant at around $90 per barrel at the beginning of the fourth quarter, it said.
A 2 million barrel per day increase in petroleum products this year was driven by emerging countries, notably due to a recovery in the aviation sector and demand from China’s petrochemical industry, TotalEnergies added.
The company also said that its electricity business’ adjusted operating income and cash flow both exceeded $500 million for the first time in the third quarter on increased renewable power generation.
Net power production totaled 8.9 terawatt-hours (TWh), up 4% year-on-year due to increased output from renewables following the full integration renewable company Total Eren and solar build-out in the United States.
Refining throughput fell, however, down 7% year-on-year in the third quarter 2023, as maintenance at the Port Arthur refinery in the United States and the Antwerp refinery in Belgium outweighed an increase in refinery throughput in France.
