French energy giant TotalEnergies on Thursday posted a whopping €14 billion profit for 2021, thanks to soaring oil and gas prices, helping them bounce back from 2020 pandemic losses.
However, French politicians have spoken out against such massive revenues at a time when ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet.
The company reported a net profit of $16 billion (€14 billion) - the highest in at least 15 years - following a $7.2 billion loss (€6.2 billion) in 2020, when oil prices cashed.
Oil and gas firms slumped into the red in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic slashed energy demand and prices.
But the market rebounded last year as the global economy and demand recovered.
The massive profits made by TotalEnergies have prompted criticism from some politicians concerned with the rising cost of living, a key topic in the lead up to the presidential election in April.
Green candidate Yannick Jadot said Total's profits were made "on the backs of French people."
While far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said "we just need to take it back off them, all the better."
Discounts
In a bid to appease its customers in France, TotalEnergies on Wednesday unveiled a series of measures to help poorer families and rural areas.
A discount of €100 would be struck off the next gas bill benefitting some 200,000 families currently struggling to pay their monthly rates, which have increased by 50 percent.
This move will cost €20 million, Total's managing director Patrick Pouyanné told RTL radio.
Total also announced a discount of 5 euros for the purchase of 50 litres, the equivalent of 10 centimes per litre.
This measure will apply to rural areas of France, in towns with less than 6,000 residents and areas "where people need their cars to go to work," accounting for more than 1,100 petrol stations.
The discount will apply from 14 February for three months.
"It's good news, but it's clearly not enough," far-left France Unbowed MP Adrien Quatennens told Franceinfo.
"Total made a 15 billion-euro profit at a time when ordinary French people are really struggling to make ends meet. It's the biggest profit ever made by a French company," he went on.
Fellow MP François Ruffin told BFMTV that the French government should "block Total's dividends and block fuel prices directly at the pump."
Major projects in Africa, Europe
The past year has seen TotalEnergies push forward with several lucrative contracts across the world.
On 1 February, Chinese and French oil giants sealed a landmark $10-billion deal (€8.5billion) to develop Uganda's energy resources and build a vast regional oil pipeline, a megaproject that has environmental groups worried.
The so-called Final Investment Decision was announced at a ceremony in Kampala by the heads of France's TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
The project aims to exploit the huge crude oil reserves at Lake Albert, a 160-kilometre (100-mile) natural border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Meanwhile talks have gone ahead to reschedule the 20-billion-dollar gas project in Mozambique, scheduled for 2024.
However, advances by Islamist insurgents early last year prompted TotalEnergies to halt work on the plant in Afungi, near Palma, described as the largest foreign investment ever made anywhere in Africa.
Offshore wind concessions
In Europe, the Crown Estate Scotland announced in a statement on 17 January that it has granted 17 concessions via an auction process to energy companies including France's TotalEnergies, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and SSE, as well as Spain's Iberdrola.
Scotland's offshore wind project concessions are valued at almost £700 million ($960 million, €840 million).
The proposed 17 developments - a combination of floating, fixed and mixed turbines - will cover more than 7,000 square kilometres of seabed.
Most of the planned new sites are on the east, north east or northern coast, with just one on the western side of the devolved nation.
