PARIS (Agefi-Dow Jones)–The energy producer TotalEnergies on Wednesday denied producing kerosene for the Russian army, after the publication of an article in the newspaper Le Monde and a press release by the NGO Global Witness claiming having traced the production route from a gas field in Siberia to a Russian airbase.
“No, TotalEnergies does not produce kerosene for the Russian army,” said the French group in a press release responding to points raised by Le Monde.
“Investigation published by Global Witness and Le Monde newspaper shows that gas condensate from Total’s Termokarstovoye field was transported across Russia to be refined, before being shipped as jet fuel to the bases of the Russian Air Force near Ukraine,” the NGO said in its statement.
The field is operated by the company Terneftegaz, of which TotalEnergies has been a minority shareholder (49%) since December 2009, alongside the Russian group Novatek (51%), explained the French group. TotalEnergies also holds a minority stake of 19.4% in Novatek.
“Terneftegaz’s activity is self-financed and TotalEnergies SE has not contributed capital to Terneftegaz since 2015. TotalEnergies has not received a dividend from Terneftegaz since February 2022,” added TotalEnergies.
In addition, the Terneftegaz facilities, which do not produce kerosene, are “operated by Novatek personnel” within this company and all gas and liquid production is sold to the Russian group, explained TotalEnergies.
TotalEnergies has “no control over the operational activities of Novatek, nor any access to information concerning the details of sales made by Novatek”, specified the group.
-Alice Doré, Agefi-Dow Jones; +33 (0)1 41 27 47 90; [email protected] ed: ECH
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August 24, 2022 07:55 ET (11:55 GMT)