It is more enmeshed in Russia than its European peers.
TotalEnergies has a 20% stake in Russia's Novatek, the only independent oiler in the country and its largest LNG producer. Russia accounted for 17% of the French company's total production in 2020 and 24% of its proven reserves.
It has a direct 10% stake in the producing Arctic LNG; Novatek has a 60% direct stake. It also has a 20% stake in Yamal LNG and another 10% stake in not-yet-built Arctic LNG 2, which was slated for first gas next year.
The company signalled a couple of years ago it planned to increase its LNG assets significantly and give gas the lion's share of its portfolio.
"TotalEnergies expresses its solidarity with the Ukrainian people who are suffering the consequences and with the Russian people who will also suffer the consequences," it said.
"TotalEnergies will no longer provide capital for new projects in Russia."
"TotalEnergies supports the scope and strength of the sanctions put in place by Europe and will implement them regardless of the consequences (currently being assessed) on its activities in Russia."
With sanctions it is questionable if it could spend money in Russia anyway.
On Sunday BP pulled its 20% stake in Rosneft at a cost of up to US$25 billion, which represents the full loss. It might seek to offload the share, but who would buy, or when and how remain up in the air as the war progresses and sanctions ramp up.
Shell left this week also, walking away from a 27.5% stake in an LNG project, its share of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, which has been built but not commissioned, and other frontier fields. It earned $700 million from its Russian assets in 2021, it said yesterday.
Both were put under signifcant pressure by the British government.
Equinor, too, has left.
ExxonMobil has said it will leave the Sakhalin-1 gas project, which it has a 30% stake in and has also promised no new investments.
The French finance minister has said he will discuss the situation with the CEO, who he said "understands the acute gravity of the situation", according to the WSJ.
Bruno Le Maire said he would discuss the "problem of principle in working with any political or economic personality close to Russian leadership".
"We deplore Russia's military action that violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine and endangers its people," Total said late yesterday.
It said it stands ready to supply fuel to Ukraine.
At the end of January the French company left Myanmar empty handed, relinquishing the producing Yadana gas asset it shared with Chevron after human rights abuses became too serious to ignore. Both walked away. Woodside Petroleum followed a day or so later.
It said in a statement the situation "no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country".
Last May, the two voted to suspend dividend payments to the shareholders of the Moattama Gas Transportation Company. CEO Patrick Pouyanne said then Total was "outraged by the repression that is unfolding in Burma".
Japan's Mitsui has not yet signalled it will leave. Around a week before Russia's invasion it signed a decarbonisation MOU with Gazprom on "implementing decarbonisation projects in Russia and other countries".
