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TotalEnergies SE (TTE)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Sun, Feb 9, 2020

$92.31

+1.42%

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Transcript

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Welcome, everybody, and welcome to Aberdeen. So, I would like to say that I think you have been right actually coming all of you to Aberdeen because you will have the opportunity today to meet with all Comm Ex members. They are all of them in front of you. And so, it will be very interesting and active day. So, we will start this morning with the presentation. This afternoon we will go to the subsidiary type U.K. where we will walk the talk and see and show you how we put in acts, actually, what is being presented. Proof of concept is very important. So, let's start now. So, before actually we do the presentation, we are going to start with a short movie about the highlights of 2019. And then, Arnaud Breuillac, will run you with safety moment. So, let's start with the highlights of 2019. [Video Presentation]

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

All right. Now, the floor is for Arnaud for the safety moment.

Arnaud Breuillac

Management

So, good morning, everybody. And today, we decided to share with you a safety incident that occurred on one of our drilling rigs. We are offshore Angola on Block 17 on 10th January of this year at 6.45 p.m. And so, the rig is located on one of the Zinia Phase 2 well and we are in a moon pool -- looking at the moon pool of the rigs, which is where the drilling riser is going down the seabed. And we have two civil personnel working on a mobile platform, as you see, working on installing flexible lines to the BOPs, the blowout preventer. And third person that you will see a bit better when I will launch the video is actually assigned to the panel controlling the platform. So, I suggest you look at the video now. So, what happened? The personnel assigned to the panel attempted to move the platform closer to the riser and in doing that, he operated the incorrect lever. This caused the pins that are supporting the platform to retract and the platform fell to the seabed and sank approximately 1,500 meters to the seabed. So, what actions were taken? Immediately, all operations were stopped. We recovered the two personnel who were on the platform. There was a general safety stand down on the rig. Full inspection of the riser from the surface to the seabed and the recovery of the platform a bit later. There was a flash report to all drilling entities issued on 17th of January and a full investigation launched and a report issued on 27th of January. The first observation is that the two persons on the platform were saved by their life lines. The use of proper PPE, which is one of our golden rules was the last safety wire and it paid its role. The second observation is that the investigation revealed that two similar events had occurred previously on Seadrill rigs working for another operator. After these previous events, an action plan was defined, including first installation of a secondary retention for the platform. And second, an isolation of the handle activating the pins retraction when platform is in use. These actions were not implemented by Seadrill. So, the second take away is that learning from incidents is critical and follow-up of safety improvement action is also critical. So, finally, we ask the CEO of the drilling contractor to come to our office, to our headquarters for the brief of the event and he committed to improve on the company's lessons learned process. Thank you.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

So, good morning. Thank you, Arnaud, for his safety moment. And I would like first, of course, all of you here in Aberdeen. First time in our history that we make these results and outlook not in London or Paris, but in -- I think it was -- we have done it for several purpose. First, because as you can see, there are some new faces in the executive team, not only Alexis Vovk, as President for Marketing and Services, who took over from Momar on January -- 1st January. But also, our CFO, Jean-Pierre, you begin to know him; and Helle as the President of Strategy. And we thought it was a good opportunity to gather together for one day, so that you have more opportunities to discuss and know them better and not only the previous members of the team. So, it's one of the objective today which we will spend the day together in Aberdeen to have more opportunities to discuss and to interact. The second reason why we are here is also a way for us to pay tribute to all our U.K. teams and subsidiary. They have done quite a remarkable work since 2017 and we decided to acquire Maersk Oil. So you will have the opportunity also to see how we can work to -- in action, the action on, I would say, this merger or we derive the synergies or we have the new development as well, our [inaudible] development is good on stream. So, guys, lot of things to observe, to discuss, and so, this afternoon, you will have the -- we will come back on something which surprised a little when we decided to acquire Maersk Oil, but North Sea is part of a strength of the company. We have decided…

Helle Kristoffersen

Management

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, everyone. I hope you can hear me all right. So, as always, we propose to frame the business presentation with just a couple of macro charts, starting with oil and oil markets. What were the highlights of 2019 and what's the outlook for 2020? According to the most recent data from the IEA, which is shown here in the bubbles on the chart. Oil demand grew by 1 million barrel per day in 2019. That number is subject to revisions as always because we are early in the year. But in any case, it's a little lower than the three-year average, which was closer to 1.5 million barrels per day. So, good growth in 2019 for oil demand but maybe somewhat disappointing. On the supply side, the OPEC Plus discipline has been on aggregate good and was stepped up in December with the additional 0.5 million barrels per day cuts, as you are all aware. We call that a supportive policy from OPEC Plus. When it comes to refining and the increase in crude prices and the higher product inventory levels in OECD countries put those refining margins under pressure towards the end of the year. For 2020 now, the IEA January report forecasted a pickup in demand growth for this year to 1.2 million barrels per day. But then, again, as always, this number is subject to upward and downward revisions, and right now, the markets are trying to get to grips with the impact of the virus outbreak in China. Will it impact overall economic growth? Will there be demand disruption? I think, very short term, immediately, as we are talking, the answer is yes, no doubt, because China is slowing down and sometimes stopping activity. But the real question is how many…

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

Good morning, everyone. As shown by Helle, our industries faced with volatility in commodity prices and margin and the consequence is very clear. We have to keep the discipline and at Total, I think we are relentless in our efforts to cuts costs, to reduce the breakeven and to high grade our portfolio, and clearly, this is with constant pressure to execute and deliver that is reflected in our track record of superior performance compared to our peers. Despite a weaker environment in 2019 compared to 2018 -- so, of course I will come back later -- today we announced very strong results and growing cash flow. And once again, I think, with these figures, we have demonstrated our ability to consistently deliver at the highest level among our peers. So let's move to the one of the key metric, cash flow. So, the environment was weaker in 2019 compared to ‘19 -- '18. Oil and gas prices on average were down by about 20% and gas prices over the same period were down by about 10%. Despite this less favorable environment, we increased cash flow by about $2 billion, so that means 8% to more than $26 billion. And another very interesting or very remarkable element is that all segments performed well in this cash flow generation. For 2019, Total is best-in-class as the only IOC able to increase its cash flow. For Upstream, high quality volume growth more than offset these weaker commodity prices. E&P is the largest contributor, up 1% for the year to $18 billion. But iGRP is the fastest growing segment with an impressive 8% growth to $3.7 billion, and of course, it's a reflection of the 60% increase in LNG sales last year. Downstream continues to deliver strong cash flow from its diversified portfolio…

Arnaud Breuillac

Management

So, let's start with a reminder that Total Upstream strategy is to build on our strengths and to focus on the value other than volume. In order to implement this strategy, first, we must take the most value out of existing assets. We do this by delivering operational excellence, and of course, this starts with safety, which is a core value of Total, and as was mentioned by Patrick, the cornerstone of operational excellence. We are also actively reducing Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions on our operating perimeter, with the objective to reduce by 15% by 2025 compared to 2015. This objective is ambitious as it is expressed in absolute terms, whilst we are growing the company and our Upstream production. Finally, we maintain a strong focus on availability of our wells and facilities, and on cost discipline to leverage our low cost competitive advantage. For new projects, we focus primarily on our core areas, Africa, Middle East and North Sea, and building up on our technical expertise in deepwater and LNG. 2019 was a good example of this strategy in action. In Africa, with the acquisition of Mozambique LNG, in Angola, with the extension of Block 17, in the North Sea, with Culzean and Johan Sverdrup startup, in deepwater, with Egina and Kaombo Sul startup, with the FID of Mero 2 in Brazil in deepwater, and also, in LNG with the FID of Arctic LNG 2 and Mozambique LNG. Finally, for exploration and acquisition of new resources, we focus on prolific basins and manage our portfolio of assets proactively to lower the breakeven and rationalize our geographical footprint. In 2019, we have continued to deliver a strong production growth with 9% increase compared to 2018. This growth was essentially due to new startups in 2019, such as…

Bernard Pinatel

Management

Thank you, Arnaud. Good morning. Let's now move to Refining & Chemicals. So, you certainly remember that refining chemical strategy is built along three pillars. The first one is, of course, along the integration, which is really the backbone of Refining & Chemical branch. So it means that we want to focus most of our capital allocation and development on our six large integrated platforms worldwide, with a target of having more than 70% of our capital employed on this platform by 2025, and of course, we keep working as it was said earlier on the operation excellence what we control, notably, all the cost along the energy efficiency. The second pillar is to grow and to grow in Petrochemicals, not in Refining. We want to grow in Petrochemicals because there is -- this is a growing market and we want to catch this growth. The petrochemical we target are produce from gas as you know, because gas is a low-cost feedstock. And we also want to be balanced in our capacity between monomers and polymers by being integrated and we will come back on this one. And the third pillar is, of course, to invest in low carbon solutions. By that, I mean, all the biobased solutions, biofuels, biopolymers. And we also want to be proactive in the field of plastic recycling with the ambition to have 30% of recycled polymer by 2030. All of this will translate into an additional CFFO of $1.5 billion by 2025, and of course, a return on capital employed above 20%. So now, let's move on to 2019 achievement. You see on the right hand side that we have been able to deliver $4 billion of CFFO, despite a weaker environment, as it was said, Refining & Petrochemicals. And you see also that…

Alexis Vovk

Management

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Bernard. To begin with, I would like to give you a quick reminder of the three pillars in Marketing & Services strategy. The first one is that we are growing our retail market, our retail network in large growing markets, such as China, India, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent, Angola. We anticipate the oil demand to remain strong in these markets, which represent actually 25% of the world demand. We aim to have more than 4,000 stations there in 2025, which will then represent 20% our station worldwide. Secondly, we are building on our existing retail networks to develop non-fuel sales to increase value. In Europe, we will continue increasing our non-fuel revenue in shops and food and we are extending our offers of services in cards, fleet management and mobility. This non-fuel part of our business is due to represent 40% of our cash flow from operation in retail in Europe by 2025. In Africa, we are the leader in fuel retail and this is important. We actually have the biggest retail networks in the continent whatever the business. So we are planning to further grow, targeting a market share of 18% and leverage on the size of our retail assets to develop non-fuel revenues to a growing African middle class. Thirdly, Marketing & Services has its role to play in the strategy of the Group to grow in low carbon businesses by providing state-of-the-art solution to our clients in mobility in alternative fuels, namely serving the growing EV charging business. Our target is to have 150,000 charge points operated in Europe by 2025. And in addition, we are taking the advantage of the development of natural gas in road transportation by building an extensive network of NGV…

Philippe Sauquet

Management

Thank you, Alexis. Let's turn now to iGRP. iGRP being as a, you are aware, the segment where we are chasing actively all the opportunities arising from what we call the energy transition. It is not the only sector and Alexis has shown in particular what M&S was also in fact going after in term of new business opportunity as well. But in iGRP we focus on growth opportunities, mainly in the three areas that you know, global LNG being based on the gas growth that we see rising from a sustainable scenario that developed more and more across the world, opportunities arising from electricity, especially in Europe, where in fact we know the market and we have the opportunity to go Downstream gas electricity value chain all the way to end user customers. And last but not least, is the renewables, the renewable being worldwide to grow energy market that we are also pursuing. And of course, history of iGRP is not only for growth of volume of energy. This is for a history of growing the cash flows and I remind you about the ambition, the target that we have ascribed to be stricter growing the cash flow from operation by $3.5 billion over the next six years. We are -- and we are investing significant amount of money $1.5 billion to $2 billion in low-carbon electricity business. So turning to cash and to result, we can say that 2019 was a good achievement in term of our targets in an environment that was clearly not really favorable especially in term of gas price in environment. We managed to increase significantly the cash flow by some 75% from $2.1 billion up to $3.7 billion. And this was the result of the long-term stable cash flow that we have…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

You had an extensive review of all the segments by my colleagues and so now just to set the scene for the future. I will come back, of course I commence you to come back with climate and the strategy that we deliver in the coming years. The objective being of course to not to demonstrate to you and to convince you, but not only we can be strong on our result, but at the same time, we have to prepare the future and the future is partly linked to the evolution of our markets in the energy field. So you know this slide, there is no change and you know the conclusions that we grow from this slide. We have to adapt our company to the evolution of the energy markets. We all in a two degree world and more and more society is claiming to go to largest world, the whole consumption could decline, which means that there is plenty of suppliers, so which can put pressure on prices at 2040 horizons, which means that we will focus oil projects with low breakeven. On the contrary, natural gas should find growth in this mix at the expense of coal and so we continue to expand our position in the gas value chain like it was explained by Philippe. Renewables is growing and economies is electrified, so it's why we want to develop a profitable and sizable low-carbon electricity business. And last but not least, if we want to be in a carbon-neutral world, we will have to invest in carbon-neutral technologies and businesses and I will come back on it. So we have set an ambition, which is summarized in this four strategy, which is summarized in this chart. This is a result of the strategy among the…

Q - Michele Della Vigna

Management

Thank you. And congratulations on a strong set of results against the backdrop of a quite difficult macro. I had two questions. The first one relates to the LNG market. As Helle highlighted, it was a strong year of growth from a demand perspective, 13%. Some of it came from low gas prices and stronger affordability and one of the key questions long-term is if we want a strong growth in the market, prices probably need to remain relatively low. But then at the same time we need new supply and at the time of fewer long-term contracts that could be difficult under volatile and low gas prices. So how do you think about a good long-term gas price to both incentivize demand, but also have decent profitability? And how do you compare it with the minimum gas price that you need to achieve a good hurdle rate in your new projects? And then if I could ask also a second question. When you think about your business in the past, you had to run it mainly for financial budget, but today you also have effectively a carbon budget to look after. And when you think about implementing it, how -- what is the best way to do it, is it through higher hurdle rates in your new oil investment or is it, for instance, by applying a carbon price, including Scope 3 in your new investments?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Okay. First LNG. I think it's interesting. I think again it's -- for me natural gas is competing with coal not with oil. So this relationship, historic relationship that we should target sort of oil equivalent is wrong. We have to be -- if we want the project to be resilient, we are more looking to, I mean, the equivalent of 11% of Brent, if you want, rather than 13%, 14%. So when you test the projects, we have to keep resilient assumptions. By the way, the assumption for natural gas are around $6 per million BTU long-term, while we take 70. I mean, we are prudent on all natural gas assumption. Why? Because we think that this market is really going to commoditized more short-term, more spots. I think the idea that you have long-term contract. Of course, we -- and by the way, this was the beauty of the Mozambique LNG projects, teams of Anadarko have done an incredible work to be able to find 10 million tons of long-term contract with good relationship to oil, by the way, so we will benefit of it. But if we -- we have to be pragmatic for the future. The next project will have to be able to market it and this is why we implement this strategy described by Philippe which is to be -- it will be more trading market. So, you need to have the logistics and you have to have regards, to have the customers to have the fleets and if you want to be able to move and to maximize the value out of this business. So, yes, that means that also which I strongly believe, the capacity to take the risk to large projects, we rely upon few companies with a strong balance sheet,…

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Thank you. Just two questions if I may as well. The first one on renewables, where I think you have grown your own capacity already quite fast with more plans to come. And I wonder for that future growth, what is the constraint. Is it capital or is it opportunities now that you have been around the world a few times dealing with easy and difficult partners? And the second question hopefully is a quick one, I wonder whether perhaps you Jean-Pierre could translate the BRL18 billion all in CapEx figure into something that's comparable with. I think again, which was a very impressive BRL13 billion organic CapEx number for 2019?

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

BRL14 billion.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Close enough.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

It's translated. First of all.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Correct.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

First one, let's be clear. On renewables first, we keep the discipline. We want the budget, we turn on all the projects we have done. The Indian projects we then -- investments we just announced $500 million is more than $13 billion, is $13 billion, let's say, okay? No but just to give you an idea and we keep it on systematically, okay? The business model has to be but -- and we can do it. Of course it took us time to understand and when we win in Quetta of all contenders, so here it is, we have more contenders. We have different competitors there, utilities, new players. So this is a different field. But we keep the discipline and we can do it. Then we are not limited by financing today. No, we are limited by the opportunities. Why? Because we have a lot of competitions and when it's bidding on its feedstock. But -- and this is -- we have teams as you said, but we have many in France. It's an ecosystem, we have the subsidiary Total here and we have the Sunpower, we have the Total Solar. We let them develop. But it's a matter of increasing competencies again because, these projects take time. A renewable project is not easy to execute, very different, these 800-megawatt solar farm in Qatar will be into production for Alphabet in one year. So the competence you need to have is more people able to come ashore. So supply chain control is very important. So now we have developed that expertise to be able to put together, what are the best Chinese producers for cells in order to mobilize them. But the larger the project will be, the more we are comfortable offshore wind, obviously, is a field where…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Irene?

Irene Himona

Management

Thank you. Irene Himona, Société Générale, and congratulations on set of figures that are such quite apart from the two industry leaders. I had three questions. Firstly, can you please clarify the terms of your deal with Apache in Suriname? Secondly, your production guidance for this year between 2% and 4% depending on Anadarko, obviously, you have closed Mozambique, it seems to have stalled elsewhere. So what happens next and is there any time limit? And then finally on OpEx, I think, Jean-Pierre highlighted the benefits of centralizing procurement, but the rate of that appears to be quite slow. I mean, you went from 15% to 30% in about four years or five years. So is there any particular obstacle to speeding that up, the speeding pace up? Thank you.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

I will let Arnaud, but no, the central procurement team has been established in 2017. So I know life is quicker. Arnaud will come back on it with maybe Namita as well, which is in charge of his team. You can take the question, Namita, on procurement. And I would say first, Apache. Apache, the deal is quite clear. I mean, it's quite simple. We pay $100 million upfront to have access to the exploration license. And then we will carry Apache for big amount, but it's a short-term financing because we will recover all the carry from the cost oil of Apache and if of course that not enough we have a system to have access to more of their share. So it's -- we use our balance sheet. I would say on Apache, I think, for me it's a perfect example. That is a company we have a limited competence in deepwater and limited balance sheet. They came to find a partner. We offer competence in deepwater, we become operator and we offer the balance sheet. And so we offer them in fact. So at the end, as I -- we said in the release, this is a big amount of carry, but when we translate that in dollar per barrel, it's around $2 per barrel of cost of acquisition. And let's be clear, when we made the deal, we had overseas reserves in front of us of the world and so it was not a pure exploration acquisition, we knew but first we could look -- we had the data in front of us. So we knew that there was some hydrocarbons and probably more to come, because this first well has been stopped because of pressure at certain horizons. As we know, there is more under…

Namita Shah

Management

So we put together DGP in September of 2017. So two and a half years later we are over 900 million in savings. Our target over three years was 1 billion. So we are going fast I would say. Jean-Pierre talked to you about our centralization, which our target is 40%, which should be able to meet this year. But what he didn't talk about is, we have about 30% of our procurement, which we put it in a category that we call piloted. And piloted means centrally we look at everything that's happening globally and we put together contracts that we negotiate with large suppliers, that we negotiated prices that then gives the option for different affiliates to use those based contracts to then do their own procurement. But it's very piloted and that's where is another source where we will be driving down costs. So I'd say don't just look at what we put in centralization, which is purely managed in France where we do all the work from A to Z in France. But we also do a lot of piloting where we make sure that we are aligning our policies and our prices across the world.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

[Inaudible] Okay.

Christyan Malek

Management

Christyan Malek from JPMorgan. Thank you for a lot of great information and detail on NG transition and what you are planning to do. One thing this doesn't sound quite theoretical and I might confuse in the question. But you mentioned and you made and you are making this point across the challenge around trying to deliver energy, but lower carbon energy. And within that context demand will be bifurcated in terms of how we can solve for that demand of energy in the context of low versus high carbon. And when I think about breaking out demand and thinking about Africa is an area which is consuming energy and low cost energy and while you are placed in Africa being it's very large part of your portfolio from a cash flow perspective. What I am trying to grapple with is the challenge of you generating low carbon energy in the continent, which is screaming for low cost energy and the dilemma in that in terms of solving for it, particularly as you go through Scope 3, and I hope I haven't lost you at this point. And how do you see your portfolio fit in terms of exposure to Africa as you solve for that and being able to do what you have done in India, which is be able to actually generate renewables as part of their energy challenge. But equally to do in a continent where you are very exposed to which is almost going the other way in terms of looking for even lower cost energy, which is not conducive to non-oil, but actually mortgages it to oil. So sort of a question, but also comment, it's much more long-term, just trying to understand, how you think the strategy around the portfolio in that context? And the second question is thinking about M&A and you took -- you have done some great deals in the past and M&A is clearly opportunistic, but also as to work from a returns perspective. Anadarko, some great transactions there, as you think about M&A going forward, will it be oil or non-oil? What's top of mind in terms of being able to deliver and if it's non-oil, how big would you be willing to go, non oil and gas, I mean?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Okay. Two strategy questions, you take the first one, Helle, about Africa, or you want me to answer.

Helle Kristoffersen

Management

No. I mean, I think, we can maybe take this offline because it's a long question. I would say, Africa, like many other places, we will have to rely on as diverse and energy mix as possible. I think there is room for all energies in Africa. The roadblock for Africa today, if I make a long story very short, is simply the electricity grid. We are building renewable power plants, as Patrick showed on one of the charts. But of course in many African countries, the grid is not reliable. So it doesn't help to just add more renewables. In some countries, it works well. In others, it doesn't. Some countries have hydro, others don't. Again if I super summarize, a big opportunity, but also fight is indeed to displace coal for those countries that either have coal or have existing coal plants and are importing coal, which is back to Patrick's point on cheaper coal versus cleaner gas. And, so we are working on that, we mentioned the win in Vienna, the lead we have in the Ivory Coast or in Mozambique. And that is for sure a big deal. And you know that the easiest way to reduce emissions short term is to substitute coal gas. We can take all the details offline, if you want.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

But in all of these but you know in all these countries there is a sort of what I observe like in India, like in South Africa. I don't know why, but each time you have the same answer. It's $5 per million BTU. 5 and the 5, you will find a way above 5. I don't know why, but almost the same answer. In South Africa I discussed we recently and India same figure. So it's fact, the reality for us is that we need to continue to drive down the cost of projects and logistics of natural gas. This is a clear condition and this is where it's our duty. If we are able -- I say to Philip, I was in India, if you are able to deliver long-term contracts with fixed price of $5 I will find plenty of that natural gas. But this is where our mission is somewhere. And even for Africa and Vienna was a good example, Ivory Coast why do we spent three years on Ivory Coast, because at the end there was a competition. Again, a coal fired plant and a gas fired and because this, you are right their access to energy is just a fundamental thing. And on renewable, I think, today, it's not going as quick as possible, because there is a lack of regulation or lack of land management, owning the land is just a question, who owns the land. So it's complex. So it's growing much slower than expected in Africa, because people have a confusion between access to energy from few solar labs in the village and overall industrial capacity, which is a 50-megawatt or 100-megawatt or 200-megawatt. And that's clear by our business but only if you make only like we do in Kenya,…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Okay. We switch to Oswald and Lydia.

Oswald Clint

Management

Thank you. So in the essence of time I won't ask a long-term strategy question. Just three very quick numbers...

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Not one but three.

Oswald Clint

Management

But very short.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Good introduction.

Oswald Clint

Management

Very short, Marketing & Services $100 million is a very nice number for us to model and use forward but you beat the number quite well last year, both in lubricants and retail. So, just expand what was happening there and could we expect that type of update coming through, one?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

One, Alexis?

Alexis Vovk

Management

Second one was that the $4 billion of cash flow from the Big 4 in the Upstream, what length of visibility do we have on that $4 billion repeating year after year? I guess, the deepwater projects will rolloff at some time. And then thirdly, LNG, 25% of your sales were spot cargoes last year. What proportion of cash flow did that contribute to your cash flow last year, please?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

So, Philippe, the last one. The second one, I would say 3.5 on an average over the next five years. Just to give you a guidance. So it's not bad. Alexis, your increase, which is partly due to some operating, if I remember.

Alexis Vovk

Management

Exactly. The -- we had $300 million growth, but actually out of the $300 million, $200 million I would say in exceptional item while re-evaluating some contracts what we could open because at the end of 2018 the price were low, they were a bit higher in 2019, so this is the gap. So I guess if you take that out, the $100 million is there and you can model that in your models as I have said.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Yeah. This is an effect that we had on the working capital. We have the counter effect. The end of prior -- the end of the -- price of oil at the end of the year last year was quite low in $54, $56. This year was $68. So this $12 had a positive impact on some open positions, which is a one-off, which would normally disappear. So we are very honest. So it's not -- it does not managed to increase its cash flow by $300 million like that. But we the counter effect in the working cap, the increase of $1.2 billion is mainly due to the revaluation of inventories. So, on one side, it's a result, on the other side it's in the balance sheet, okay. Philippe your spot activity and your dollars per million BTU for any volume to trade there?

Philippe Sauquet

Management

The spot activities, you have to understand why we are pursuing the spot activity. It's not to make a profit per se on the spot cargo. In fact, we use a spot in order to optimize our global portfolio. For cargo going from Yamal all the way to China, if I have an opportunity to buy spot cargoes in Asia and deliver to my customer in China, I will do it and I will put the Yamal LNG cargo to another market or another one. So just one element of the global portfolio and this is why I cannot tell you what is the size of the profit that we generate by this spot cargo. But what is clear is that when we see overall on all our flexible volumes that we generate some $0.8 per million BTU on average, the spot is one way to, of course, to generate this optimization.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

4.5 million tons. So you convert 5 million tons, you multiply million BTU by 0.8 and you have the answer. As an average, because it's not -- we don't follow each deal one by one, you have the average. Lydia?

Lydia Rainforth

Management

Thanks, Patrick. Two quick questions, the first on digital, since we are in Aberdeen and we are going to spend some time talking about this afternoon. How has this approach changed digital over the last year, has it just accelerated from what it was, are you seeing better savings, so just a little bit how you think about the digital side and then just a tidier question on production. It's nice that Tempa Rossa actually coming on stream. So any kind of comments about how that ramp up is going, but also what are you including for Libya within the guidance for this year?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Tempa Rossa, you are -- thank you for the question because we did not issue a press release because we are very -- it took us 18 years to put that into production. So we are super – what -- superstitious, super one. So it took 18 years, one year in [inaudible] right to produce, which is incredible in Italy, it's a country, I mean, there is no oil, but one unit. So now it's done. So I don't want to announce anything public because I don't know what will happen. So it's producing, by the way, 15,000 barrel per day, I think, today. It's ramping up to 50,000 barrel per day. So, things are in action. It took time, sorry for that. But no, it's -- by the way, it was why we made 8.7% and not 9% this year, it was a small gap, but let’s -- we will not complain about 9% or 8.7%. So it's Tempa Rossa.

Lydia Rainforth

Management

Libya.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Libya [inaudible] Libya, as you know, you read the newspaper like me, there is a blockade on all these production. I mean, today I think Libya production is probably down to 200,000 or something like that.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

250,000

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

250,000 from 1.2 million, so we would suffer from that, okay? That's not small, but it's part of when we put 2 to 4, the 2 has a prudence, some people could be surprised, but organically, you must have a little higher figure, but you have always some in execution, nothing is perfect. So the two are taking part of a prudence, I would say, as a prudent, that's point. Digitalization accelerating, what I would say to you is that we have by the way awarded a contract yesterday to set this digital plant with 300 engineers yesterday to Accenture. So it's moving forward quickly. What I have remarked is we are really -- and to just some of the themes of refining and chemicals of Bernard, of Arnaud, they want to make -- so the idea is to have 20 line it’s a plant, you would have 20 line of production in parallel of teams, agile teams, able to deliver every four months more or less a project. So 20 times four months per years to make 60 projects per year. So it's a way to scale up and to speed up and to scale up all the digital, I would say, implementation of this technology in the company. Today, it was one by one where the fundamentally idea is to be able in parallel to have at least 50 projects per year and not only to scale up, I would say, that creation with the development, but when the implementation within the group because it's a matter. So you will have some more insights this afternoon from the teams in U.K., because it's not really a sensible approach it's also centralized and I think we come back on it, if I can, let’s see. Somebody wants to add something on it, no. Somebody else? Yeah. [Inaudible]

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Two questions if I may. So the first one, have you changed your long-term assumption for gas price and oil price for your impairment test. You were using $70 I think last.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

No. Gas or oil

Unidentified Analyst

Management

$70 for oil.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Okay. We will come back on it.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

But for Brent, so if you can clarify that what's your, I would say, a long-term assumption for impairment test? And as a second question, which is also a bit related is you are quite, I would say, not very optimistic for long-term gas price or for LNG price you were think you said $6 per MBTU of $6 to $7. I just wonder how do you think you can make money out of your U.S. LNG offtake given the condition under 15% of [inaudible] plus a fee, plus transportation.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Okay. Philippe, you take the second one. Jean-Pierre you explain your impairment assumptions.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

Yes. So I mentioned to you doing my presentation that we use the long-term trajectory in line with SDS scenario. So this means oil that by 2050 will be at $50 per barrel. And for the gas we are very conservative. So we are below the SDS scenario.

Philippe Sauquet

Management

So be precise because it will be disclosed in the document reference, we are fully transparent. So it's a little more complex. So it's like we consider today we are at 64. We consider but the oil price, by the like the SPS scenario of EIA, which is going quite high, we will increase $20, $30, we have a plateau at $70, because we think that there was another investment in this industry. And that vision the investments despite a shallow will have an impact. So we have a curve and from 2030 when we got down to go down to 50. So we have a straight line. So it's sort of 70 going down to 50. So and you will see. So it's not one assumption, it's a little more smarter, why because we think, but the world is not today on the 2 degree scenario. We will be one day, maybe but today is more on the, I would say, a current scenario. So we don't see why we should take the lower one immediately, because again on the impairment test, the time has a value. On the gas price, we have nothing to modify because we are very conservative, 2.5 for the U.S. I think 5.06 for Europe. So we came to same assumptions, because our assumptions were already quite low, and I think, we made already the write-off in the past on the few shale gas we had in our portfolio. So it's not much to write off yet, which has been done systematically in over $2.5 has been taken as an assumption, two years, three years ago. So it was down. So we are on this we thought and you would have all the details.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Jason?

Jason Gabelman

Management

Yeah. Jason Gabelman from Cowen.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

There was…

Jason Gabelman

Management

[Inaudible]

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Yeah. Your question.

Jason Gabelman

Management

I can't keep the tricky question, but [inaudible]. Okay, well, clearly, if you take a long-term priority, the opportunities will be between, let's say, six and sort of the Permian BTU and you start with Andrea but at three, you don't make any money. You don't not lose, but don't make any money. What is a consequence. If there is no LNG develop in order to explore, the massive amount of gas that will be exported but need to be exported in order to continue to produce in the Permian and so on. You cannot stay with a Permian per BTU in the U.S.?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

By the way we have…

Jason Gabelman

Management

Why we are very sure if…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

We have an assumption of 2.5. I will just tell you actually.

Jason Gabelman

Management

Yeah.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

So fundamentally our U.S. position is based on the idea that the gas price in the U.S. will be low.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

And if I might add the cherry on the cake is that all of the U.S. volume are flexible and this of course has a values $3.8 billion per BTU has a value. So if you are a global player like Total, you can generate this kind of value. If you are, I would say, simple minded player, having in mind, I will buy with LNG from the U.S. and ship it towards the same customer in China. Don't, well, go way, fly away. I think there are some people who have -- who had a lot of trouble when -- due to Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi quarrel, there was quite in term of tax on importing U.S. LNG. So you need to be a global player to make money again.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

And by the way, as a consequence of what we said, is that we don't want really to produce the gas we use in the U.S., because we have plenty of gas and you can fight with the oil producer already to commit you of their gas at a very low price, if you want to do it.

Jason Kenney

Management

Hi, there. It's Jason Kenney from Santander. Two short questions, please. First on tax rate guidance, you were notably below with estimates for tax in the fourth quarter, where do you think we are going to go in 2020? And then, secondly, on going back to LNG, I think, two Chinese companies at the minute are declaring force majeure for February and March deliveries. What event is being said as the reason for force majeure? So, I wasn't aware that weak demand was causation for force majeure. And if force majeure is being served, are you seeing those notes this year and what kind of impact could that have for your LNG volumes in the second quarter and third quarter?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Arnaud

Arnaud Breuillac

Management

Yes. So the tax rate for the group last year was at 34%, so down by 5%, directly in relation with the low prices environments because at the same time you had a contribution of E&P that has been reduced and the same for Downstream. We consider that -- now, last year, we were in a $60 per barrel environments. So we anticipate at $60 per barrel, more or less the same tax rate for this year. So I would say, 30%, 35% for -- at the level of the Group and for E&P alone between $40 and $45, but once again it's dependent on the prices.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

So the force majeure, we did not yet receive any notice, but Philippe will --

Philippe Sauquet

Management

Okay. The basic situation in Asia clearly is that the winter is warm, 3 degrees above normal. The demand is on the low side and there are a lot of people, a lot of customers that have contracting long-term who have too much LNG. For second, it's clear, we have had spot prices that are very low, but you can see on the screen there is a strong temptation from some long-term customers to try to play with force majeure concept to say, okay? I cannot take my contract, my cargo and those are long-term contracts. But I would like to buy spot, which is a bit contradictory. The last step, yes, might get a bit more serious because of course with the Coronavirus, some Chinese customers, at least one, is trying now to use the Coronavirus to say I have force majeure, the tariffs cannot be used and so and so. I have a real force majeure. We have received one fourth measure that we have rejected because it's not our legal energy. This is that there is no force majeure, it's, I would say, the way we negotiate on an ongoing basis, with the change. So it's not you. Of course we have to be careful. If there is a real granted in the all year loading ports or unloading ports in China, we will have a real case for force majeure, but for the time being, as you might be aware, this is not the case. So for me it's ordinary negotiation.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

You have the question in front of us. Q - Jason Gammel Yes.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

This is burning. He has been putting his arm for one hour now.

Jason Gammel

Management

Thanks very much. Jason Gammel of Jefferies. 2019 was a very big year for Total in terms of sanctioning LNG projects. But it does appear like the industry is sanctioning quite a bit of capacity as well. I know that you are looking at the multi-decade period when I can serve evaluating projects. But how do you think about the potential for the macro to be oversupply again in 2025. The way that it is today, when it comes to evaluating whether you go forward with incremental projects? And then just specifically in Papua New Guinea again is the apparent delay in the expansion of PNG LNG going to have any effect on Papua LNG moving forward.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

So, first, yeah, I mean, it has never been a very linear industry, the LNG. No, there was no sanctions during five or six years. So the only people are sanctioning project then we will have a gap again. By '22, '23, '24 if we continue at a pace of 10% per year. I can tell you, you have a big tension on the supply and you don't have enough because there is no trains coming really on screen now. So and then '25 year it's clear, but suddenly you will have a wave of projects. We will see all of them are executing in the same timeframe. We have observed in this industry and unfortunately, we had a very good example in our portfolio like Lamar with some examples, like this, where it's has been more six years, seven years when five years or four years, five years. And also we have raised the much matter of execution. Yes, it's clear that today you have many projects coming together. I would say it's a matter of decision. I mean at the end it's each consortium or each operator is looking to each investor to is a project resilient even it's a question of the answer for which there is a question of the what is your assumption you take. You have to face the reality if you think that you can have a $8 per million Btu in such an environment in 2026. I am afraid you are wrong is where you have to be prudent in the way you plan -- you decide you make your decisions. And I would say for this point who being the first to decide better and being the last one because the more you have sanctions in front of you, by the…

Jean-Pierre Sbraire

Management

Okay, I think, we have one last question, because I see time running from Lucas.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

We didn't have a question of Lucas, we are not happy.

Lucas Herrmann

Management

Sorry, I can’t be, so it’s Lucas Herrmann from Exane.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Go ahead with your question.

Lucas Herrmann

Management

Two if I might, one I am going to ask you to let me dream. And but the first one is to JP and it's just loan repayments from associates, understand the concept, increasingly coming through the cash flow from operations line, impossible for me to forecast, how much loan repayment is going to come through in any one year. So I just wonder whether you can make any or give us any indication, the extent to which, one will be seeing lower payments coming through the CFFO line, as we go into 2020? The second, the question around dreaming, you suggested $200 million or so of cash flow from operations from the renewable business, the electricity business. I think that's exclusive of 100 million from plan, but you have plans out to 2025 you talked about new gigawatts of capacity you have talked about lots of things that you are doing around batteries? When you look at those plans, what do you expect the CFFO to be 2025 from the renewable part of that business, not the LNG and LNG marketing component?

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

Okay. So the first question is loan repayment. I know that there has been, again, if you model all our SMEs, you can do it. We will find…

Lucas Herrmann

Management

So…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

We don't have so many. Now, for example, it's clear that in the CFFO this year, we had $500 million of loan repayment coming from Yamal, because the price-wise grew because -- now fundamentally because this plant, by the way, it's a good news for all. You don't have that in your figures, but the production today of Yamal is 20.5 million tons, 20.5. So we -- this plant is just extraordinary, not only it's on schedule and budget, but it's delivering an increase compared to the initial 18 million tons, I think it was or 16.5 million tons, 16.5 million tons is delivering 20.5 million tons today. So we have -- and this was not plan in our reserves and planning and productions and cash, which allow us to accelerate the loan repayments. So this has an effect -- loan repayments is linked to what is the price environment, what is the production and so it's more difficult to plan. That's true, but it's, let's be clear, the objective of all the teams in Total, in all these companies, is to accelerate loan repayments. So they have a duty in Korea for HTC, in SATORP with Saudi Aramco. And generally, I don't know why, but our current investors are in agreement with us. We are all happy to see money flowing back to the investors. So that's clear. But it's a same mechanism, it's loan repayment. But when you are making a PSC, some cost recovery, I mean, I am at $64, we have accelerated some cost recovery from Kaombo, it's better to start Kaombo at $64 but at $50. So compared to the model, it's the same mechanism and that's linked to the oil price and the production of course to -- so there is not much difference in terms of models between a cost recovery in oil and the loan repayments in the LNG plant in fact fundamentally.

Lucas Herrmann

Management

Yeah. Patrick, I am not criticizing the…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

No. No. I understand…

Lucas Herrmann

Management

It's simply to try and understand. What I don't know is the scale of the outstanding and therefore what one can expect…

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

It's not outstanding. It's believe in our 1 -- plus $1 billion at $60 next year. Believe in it, that's all what I -- and we will deliver it, this is why the guidance we gave and it's taking into account all these effects at the Group level. The Group is large enough with many assets, but the one will deliver, the other one will not deliver. So it's not linear, all that and it's the advantage we have a large portfolio of assets and these type of assets, okay?

Lucas Herrmann

Management

Now, the dream.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

The dream. The dream is what -- we gave you a figure to do, it's only 200 billion of CFFO, so I think as we reach 1 billion. I don't know if Patrick, could give you a figure. Now, but I don't know.

Lucas Herrmann

Management

That’s doing either.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

I will come back to you in September, we will present, but honestly all that is a growing business, we invest there and there, we have to put together and we have, so but 1 billion is a good ambition, And honestly, however, we managed to have an acceptable side for that all we have a question mark. But it cannot be just -- it's not, it's not a good washing story and to have an acceptable size, it will go for CFFO, that's the only -- that's one of the metrics we need to reach.

Patrick Pouyanne

Management

All right. Well, thank you very much and we are one hour delayed. That's the bad news. The good news is you can continue interacting I'd tell you with the top management over lunch which is going to be served right next door. And I think I clearly will postpone by one hour the program. So we will meet at 2:30 in order to leave to West Hill. So that will leave us with one hour lunch. Thank you.