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

Henri Patricot: Just one question left. On your comments around the global LNG market and European gas in ’23, when you show European LNG imports potentially up to 25 million tonnes for this year, can you expand on the assumptions around European gas demand? It seems like this will imply quite a rebound this year. So where do you see that coming from?

Patrick Pouyanne: I’m not sure I have understood the question. Is the European gas demand — yes, in 2022, I think what we have observed is more or less minus 15%. I mean, this is the figures I have in mind. I mean, I’m controlling — stephane confirms. As your question for me, will it be accelerated in ’23 because we see a trend, it was a shift mainly from gas, by the way, to oil. A central number of manufacturing industries shifted from gas to fuel, which we can understand. The gas was at $200 per barrel, and the fuel was probably at $120 per barrel. So there was an arbitration down. Part of it has been coal, but less than what we were thinking. What will happen in ’23, I think, again, this price still today is $120 per barrel , $2 per million BTU, it’s still high, so it could damage it.

We gave you, I think, in the slide, we are quite clear about what our expectation. We think that EU LNG imports will be higher in ’23 than in ’22 by 15 million, 25 million tonnes. Maybe part of the demand disruption will come back. I’m not fully convinced it’s really linked to the price. So that — and again, I think people today, we are entering into a new world in Europe where energy prices are high. Energy costs are high. For energy consumers, I think the idea that they should be serious about the way they consume energy will be deeper in their mind, and they will invest like we do. By the way, I think this is the only advice we can give to them. If you want to lower your energy invoice, you have to consume less, and so to be efficient, like we are doing in TotalEnergies with our energy saving platform, refineries, et cetera.

Operator: This was the last question. Back to you for the conclusion.

Patrick Pouyanne: Emma, thank you. Thank you to all of you. I’ve seen that we have a good attendance to this presentation. So next meeting will be in March, either the 21st or 23rd. We’ll confirm you the date very soon, to make this presentation on strategic sustainability and climate based around our sustainability and climate report, like we’ve done last year. It will be live. It will be live in London, and no more with Teams because we like also to have the opportunity to have more discussions, informal discussions with all of you. So thank you for attending this presentation and supporting again the rating of the TotalEnergies shares. Thank you.