TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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It’s possible. It’s building the future of the company. The $5 billion that we have mentioned for 2023, I think, is a level, which will be maintained for the following 3 years. We don’t intend to grow it very much higher. I think it’s a good level. If we want now to combine growth and profitability, if — and we want to do it, so it’s not if we want to do it. So I think it’s a good level, and it’s — it obliges us to be selective, but selective in a large way. So we have room for improvement for deploying these. Why I say that, it was just because we are not — in 2022, we have managed our 6 gigawatt per year with this type of amount. So for me, I have enough CapEx to make my 6 gigawatt per year, which is more or less the objective, which are assigned to the teams of Stephane.

So I should not — yes, and the only point is coming back to Michele’s question is what is the size of the ambition is the new molecules. And for me, the question on hydrogen and all that is more about where is the market, which will drive our expansion of CapEx.

Operator: The next question is from Jason Gabelman of Cowen.

Jason Gabelman: This is Jason Gabelman from Cowen. I have a couple of questions. The first is you press released last week that you had farmed down a position in the renewal power asset at a high multiple, but it was a low overall cash contribution, one that I wouldn’t have guess the materiality of press release. It was a few hundred million dollars. And I’m wondering why you decided the press release was given. The thought was you have been farming down these assets all along. And if that potentially indicates that given the market environment, you’re possibly accelerating the farm downs of the developed renewable power business over the next year and what type of cash flow contribution that could bring. My second question is on the LNG portfolio.

You’re obviously undergoing the review in Mozambique, but there’s also been some reporting that you could take a large stake, either offtake or equity in a U.S. LNG project. And I’m wondering, if your case of growth in the U.S. LNG market is at all dependent on what happens in Mozambique and if you’ll still continue to view the U.S. LNG market as one in which you want to grow in.

Patrick Pouyanne: Jason, you have complex question, but easy to answer. First, no, there is no acceleration at all. We have been always very clear. But to reach the double-digit profitability we want to have in renewables, we’ll have to integrate farm downs. It’s part of the business model. This is why we have some growth capacity objectives that is 35 gigawatt growth. But at the end, we’ll keep more or less half of it. This is very clear. We stated that 3 or 5 years ago when we began the strategy, and we implement it. So there is no acceleration. It came on our desk. There was some assets in France, which were part of to being farmed down. It has been done in a very good way. And thanks to this farm down, we have on these assets more than a double-digit return, much better.

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