TotalEnergies SE Ordinary Shares

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Total Energy's first quarter 2023 results conference call. I now hand over to Patrick Pouyanné, CEO, and Jean-Pierre Sbraire, CFO, who will lead you through this call. Sir, please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Good morning or good afternoon, wherever you are. I'm here today together with Jean-Pierre who will give you a I would say a review of the very good quarter that we had on the first quarter of 2023. I just wanted as an introduction to comment the other news which came this morning around about the future of our Canadian assets. As you know, we explained that in September at our CMD, we are planning to organize a spin-off of our Canadian assets. We went through the process, and in the meantime, because fundamentally I think we are very serious about making this spin-off a reality, we attracted some unsolicited offers in the last month. And one of them has materialized, and I think it's a value which is quite attractive, $5.5 billion Canadian dollar cash plus $600 million of additional payment under certain conditions, a value which is fitting with the expectations of the initial quotation, which were given to us between $5 billion to $6 billion Canadian dollar. And, of course, it's coming from Suncor, who knows very well one of our two assets. And Suncor will comment a little later in the day his own view of the deal. For us, so it's fitting the value. It's straightforward, I would say, way to diverse the assets as we are planning to do it straight away. And so from the company and from the shareholders' point of view, the board considered that it was these alternatives was worth to be considered and approved yesterday to move forward with this transaction. Of course, the most important part of the discussion beyond these comparing both alternatives was about the distribution to shareholders because, as you know, a spinoff was meant, in fact, a distribution in kind of some shares of the NUCO. So we both perfectly have that in mind. And the guidance that we have decided to give to our shareholders is today is that last year, you know, we put higher guidance on the payout to shareholders of 35% to 40% of cash flow from operations, which we're down in 22%, 37%. There, because we love, I would say, additional proceeds from these sales, the divestment, The guidance we give you today is at least 40%. I mean, that means, by the way, I told you before, but there was no ceiling. The 35%, 40% was a range of targets. Today, we told you that the board decided to increase or to enhance, I would say, for 23, these distribution to shareholders with at least 40%. So consider 40% plus. You have to get the plus. at least 40% of the cash flow from operations in 2023, which I think is good news for all shareholders and which, of course, maintains the course of the company. You have noticed that On the first quarter, we maintained the buyback at $2 billion, like last year's last quarters. On the second quarter, we repeated the $2 billion. So I think it gives these guidance for the distribution to shareholders for 2023. At least 40% of our cash-per-form operations should give you some comfort about the will of the board to have, I would say, to maintain or to develop even an attractive return for shareholders. So I will not be longer. I think I will give the floor to Jean-Pierre, who will be happy for the first time. As you know, today we disclosed the integrated energy and integrated power segment results for the first time. I told you during the last investment day that we should We are targeting 10%. You know, in Petal Energies, we are not 10%, but 9.9%. But it's, I think, comforting some expectations about the investments we are doing in these integrated power segments. Jean-Pierre, the floor is yours.

Yes, thank you, Patrick. So 2023 is off to a good start. Once again, I think we demonstrate our ability to generate strong results,