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

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Christopher Kuplent: Two quick ones, please, if I may. Patrick, Jean-Pierre, if you’re looking at your CapEx outlook, can you maybe give us a little more granularity in terms of your assumptions embedded in that $16 billion to $18 billion number for 2023, particularly looking for your assumptions regarding underlying inflation? Jean-Pierre, you said there wasn’t really any to report in 2022. Just wondering what you’re assuming for ’23. And if you can, maybe give us a hint, as you usually do, about how much of that you think will be inorganic. And then lastly, on your point, Patrick, regarding the iPower, the new disclosure. Maybe you could give us, if you had, a view on, as you rightly said, a lot of unemployed capital that we will see growing in the next few years.

So maybe you could tell us where you see capital employed going for that integrated power business because you’ve got access to that pipeline you’ve worked hard to achieve. I think that would be probably a more important figure than your earnings progression into 2023 here.

Patrick Pouyanne: Okay. CapEx inflation embedded for inflation, you see on the short term, it’s quite low. I think maybe it’s a 2% to 5%, which has been mentioned by — but on the short term, there is no real impact on CapEx. The CapEx — the inflation for us, the — a deck each for Nicolas and Namita are more about the new projects because, of course, the contractors want to embed higher costs in the new projects, and we don’t want. So this is fundamentally the debate for the execution of the projects, which are — and most of the CapEx of the year are more of the old projects, which are already sanctioned than the new ones. The new ones generally are impacting quite — will impact the next years. And so there is no real inflation, I would say.

And the rig could be one of them. But as Jean-Pierre explained for 2023, we are covered by good — I mean, good rates. So for me, there is a debate about inflation. With contractors, it is more for these new projects we want to sanction that I mentioned to you. That’s a point on which we need to be all serious. Otherwise, we’ll wait because we’ll not repeat the mistake we’ve done in 2010, 2014, which is to sanction whatever the cost is. I will not do that. So M&A, I think there is a net assumptions of inorganic, which is around $1 billion to $2 billion. That’s okay. It’s a matter of buying and selling. And we have some different options in the portfolio to buy and sell in — and so we’ll keep you aware, but this is, I would say — and it’s part why we keep the range because, of course, when we don’t — the range is, for me, sometimes you have divestments which are done, but you — for example, Dunga, we’re during 1 year, but we will receive the proceeds only in ’23, not in ’22.

So we might have some time of execution, which in this type of divestments. So that’s the idea. So most of the CapEx we gave you are organic, in fact, to be clear, most of it. On iPower, it’s a new reporting, so we will have a full reporting by — you have to be a little patient because Jean-Pierre and his teams are working. And so from first quarter 2023, in April or end of March — in April, sorry, end of April, we’ll deliver to you not only the quarterly results, but the previous years. We will restate the 3 previous years. So you will have some indication. It’s a business where most of the CMO — we have some capital employed, of course, and productive because — but the cycle is quicker than in oil and gas because, normally, to build an onshore solar plant or an onshore wind farm, it’s more 2 years than 5 — 4 years, I would say.

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