TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said it is not up to the West and its non-governmental organisations to tell African nations such as Namibia how to go about dealing with the energy transition.
In an interview with the Financial Times, he said: “The pace of transition will not be the same everywhere. We cannot ask African countries just to avoid (developing) resources because we have developed their resources for our own comfort for 20 years.”
In Namibia, for example, which does not have an existing oil and gas industry, Total has found promising hydrocarbon deposits offshore.
“We are perfectly aware that any new oil and gas development could become an issue but the question for me is more what does Namibia want?” Pouyanné asked. “I don’t think it’s western NGOs who need to decide the future of Namibia.”
Pouyanné is an unabashed defender of what he presents as a pragmatic worldview, arguing that oil demand may peak before the end of this decade but will decline slowly enough after that new production will be required.
“There is a sort of divide today between the global south and the north on this perspective, which we have observed in Dubai as well, in the way the debate happened,” Pouyanné said, referring to the COP 28 climate talks in December.
In Iraq, where Total is involved in a $27bn series of gas, oil and solar projects, the government’s principal preoccupation is developing gas for domestic power generation and increased oil production will be used to pay for it, he said.
“If we don’t engage with the global south where the emissions will come from — China, from India, from Brazil, from South Africa — if we don’t engage with them by bringing them energy, there is no way to find a solution to the climate,” he said.
In Europe, having significantly reduced dependence on Russian gas — a chunk of which is still provided by Total’s stake in the Yamal liquefied natural gas project led by Russia’s Novatek — leaders needed to keep diversifying sources of supply, Pouyanné warned.
In particular, they should seek to protect long-term imports of LNG from the US, which is now its biggest supplier, he argued.
Last month President Joe Biden imposed a temporary pause on new licences to export LNG to countries without a free trade agreement with Washington, which includes the EU.
“The US says that they can help Europe with their security of supply,” Pouyanné said. “Let’s negotiate that agreement.”