“This is how we redistribute our profits”: TotalEnergies announces “continue” the capping of fuel prices

The oil giant did not give a date or price. But TotalEnergies wants to “continue” the capping of fuel prices, the multinational said this Wednesday to Le Parisien, while Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called on it to “redistribute in one way or another” its possible “exceptional” profits.

“This is how we redistribute our profits”, indicated the group in a statement also sent to Agence France-Presse, stressing that it had put in place “without waiting to be asked, a policy of capping fuels from which the French benefit” since February 2023.

At the beginning of April, TotalEnergies announced that it would extend its cap on fuel prices in France for this month, while raising the ceiling for a liter of diesel to 2.25 euros and leaving that of gasoline at 1.99 euros per liter. This capping leads to a significant influx of users into the French oil group’s stations, leading to temporary shortages.

While the war in the Middle East caused the price of hydrocarbons and fuels to soar, TotalEnergies initially capped the fuels distributed at 1.99 euros per liter, but had already raised the price of a liter of diesel to 2.09 euros per liter in mid-March.

Profits soar

TotalEnergies also presented this Tuesday sharply increasing quarterly results, boosted by the rise in the price of hydrocarbons linked to the war in the Middle East, which is reviving the debate on the taxation of oil superprofits, as in 2022 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“If there are exceptional results, that raises the question of redistribution,” declared the Prime Minister, who was questioned in the Senate by the president of the socialist group Patrick Kanner. “TotalEnergies must position itself in one way or another on a way of redistributing (…),” added the head of government.

On the side of the multinational, we respond that “the good results of TotalEnergies are used to finance the fuel cap in France” in its service stations, but also to “finance” its investments “to develop the company, in particular with the energy transition”, and “to pay taxes and contribute to public finances”, to the tune of 16 billion euros in 2025 “in taxes and duties around the world”, including 2 billion in France.

The group also indicates that, if its profits are used to pay dividends, 80% of its approximately 35,000 employees in France benefit from them as shareholders of the company.