The French Total must defend itself against the accusations of supplying fuel to the Russian air force
On Thursday, a French minister asked for clarification regarding an article published by a local newspaper that the French multinational TotalEnergies is involved in a joint venture to supply fuel for the Russian army fighter jets.
On Wednesday, the French newspaper Le Monde published an article in which its reporters wrote that " the French oil and gas giant and its local partner Novatek operate a gas field whose product, once transformed into kerosene, is used to to supply Russian fighter jets engaged in the war in Ukraine “.
French transport minister Clement Beaune, the first French government official to react to the Le Monde report, said Thursday on a French television channel, as reported by Reuters : , voluntarily or involuntarily, there has been a circumvention of the sanctions or the energy that a company, French or otherwise, has produced “.
TotalEnergies reacted strongly to the Le Monde report as early as Wednesday.
In the comments to the article, the French oil and gas group says that “ it is not true, TotalEnergies does not produce kerosene for the Russian army. That's not true, TotalEnergies is not involved in the supply of fuel to Russian military aircraft in any form “.
“ TotalEnergies categorically denies all baseless allegations contained in this article. TotalEnergies is appalled by the significant number of errors, shortcuts, inaccuracies, speculations and untruths it contains , ”the company said.
TotalEnergies had answered Le Monde's questions for comment prior to the publication of the article.
" If Le Monde had not chosen to ignore our answers, it could not have reported that TotalEnergies" exploits "a field from which gas condensates are extracted which are then transformed into kerosene to supply Russian fighter jets ," said TotalEnergies.
The company had clearly informed Le Monde that it was a minority shareholder of Terneftgaz, a company majority owned by the Russian Novatek, and that it had no operational role in Terneftgaz.
“ The condensates produced by Terneftgaz are sold entirely to Novatek under the contracts stipulated from the beginning and, as a minority shareholder, TotalEnergies has no control or information on the subsequent sales made by Novatek ,” declared the French major. Which makes it not guilty, but simply a participant in the profits from the sale of kerosene to the Russian aviation. In which it lightens the position, but it is ridiculous in view of the sanctions, in theory, imposed by the EU….
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The article The French Total must defend itself from the accusations of supplying fuel to the Russian aviation comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-francese-total-deve-difendersi-dalle-accuse-di-fornire-carburante-allaviazione-russa/ on Fri, 26 Aug 2022 06:00:16 +0000.