“TotalEnergies has reached an agreement to sell its lubricant plant and its subsidiary TotalEnergies Marketing Russia…said the group. Lou BENOIST / AFP
The French group is continuing its gradual withdrawal from the country announced following the Kremlin’s military offensive in Ukraine.
The French group TotalEnergies announced to AFP on Monday that it was withdrawing from a major automotive and industrial lubricants plant, located southwest of Moscow, continuing its gradual withdrawal from the country announced in the wake of the Kremlin’s military offensive in Ukraine. “In line with our principles of action set out on March 22, TotalEnergies has reached an agreement to sell its lubricant plant (industrial, editor’s note) and its subsidiary TotalEnergies Marketing Russia to a company created by the Russian management team. of the subsidiary“, said the group.
“The finalization of the sale has just been completed following the authorization by the Russian authorities allowing the effective and definitive implementation of the sale“, he added. TotalEnergies did not wish to communicate the amount of the transaction. A source familiar with the matter told AFP that the plant would resume production in the coming months under a different brand and without the addition of TotalEnergies products or technologies.
A “gradual withdrawal”
Inaugurated in October 2018 in the presence of the CEO of TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné, this automotive and industrial lubricants plant, located in the Kaluga region, south-west of Moscow, has until now enabled the French group to produce these products locally in Russia. to the internal market. The French group thus continues itsphasing out“Russian assets”while ensuring continued supply of LNG to Europevia the Yamal megaproject in the Russian Arctic, a source at TotalEnergies told AFP.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, quoting the factory’s new commercial director Yegor Popov, “a new owner was registered on March 2” last and the factory will resume its “normal runningfrom March 15. When the plant was inaugurated in 2018, TotalEnergies indicated that the site had an initial annual production capacity of 40,000 tonnes of lubricants, with the possibility of increasing to 70,000 tonnes.
At the end of April 2022, against the backdrop of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, TotalEnergies announced a “start of withdrawalfrom Russia, a strategic country for its activities. In total, in 2022, TotalEnergies depreciated $15 billion in Russian assets, notably selling its activities in the Kharyaga oil field and the Termokarstovoye gas field. The only major exception, TotalEnergies continues at this stage its activities in the exploitation of the Yamal gas field, a colossal project which is not targeted by the European sanctions aimed at Moscow.
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