TotalEnergies SE (TTE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good morning. We are delighted, Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette, Jean-Pierre Sbraire and myself as well as all the members of the Board of Directors present today at the first row of this assembly to welcome you to the TotalEnergies' assembly at the Salle Pleyel. We hope that this general assembly will be able to unfold in the best conditions because it is a strong moment and expression of our with dialogue shareholders and being with you is very important for us. As you have noticed, and we regret we had to take exceptional measures today to call on police forces with a strict checking of the accesses because of the difficulties of people who want to upturn our committee and our assembly, and so we had to take the necessary measures. Of course, I regret that this meeting must take place in such a situation, it should be a dialogue. I hope we will have these discussions, but we had to adopt these exceptional measures. As before, we have implemented the necessary means to facilitate your remote participation. I'd like to say hello to all of the shareholders who are coming in presence and in person and those who are remote. The shareholders who follow the assembly live cannot participate directly to the vote, but they were able to do it upstream by letter or Internet through the VOTACCESS platform. We thank them and encourage them to have requested to the system to favor the shareholder dialogue and to better answer to your expectations. As in the previous years, the company has opened a platform on the Internet website where some of you have had the possibility to send questions that are not considered as written questions in terms of regulation, but can feed eventually the dialogue during this general assembly. We have received about 60 questions. As every year, I will answer to most of the questions that you have asked, with setting a priority to questions asked by shareholders who are in the room in person. I would like to inform you that bailiffs and journalists are also present and are assisting to the assembly. I would like to wish the welcome to all of you, shareholders, who all the people interested in following this assembly wherever you are, and I declare the session open. We're now going to proceed to the constitution of the bureau of the assembly, the FCPE TotalEnergies' ACTIONNARIAT FRANCE, represented by [ Mr. Olivier Fouche ] on my right side, and the Amundi company represented by Madam [ Elan Schomperwie ] have accepted to be the scrutineers for this assembly. They have, according to the attendance sheet, the greater number of voices of shareholders present in the room. I thank them and declare the bureau constituted. I would like to appoint as Secretary of the Assembly, your Financial Director Jean-Pierre Sbraire, who is at my side. According to the present sheet, there are 694 shareholders present who have expressed their vote. This shareholders compose 1.715 billion shares, and have right to vote 1,000,998,304 votes double votes for some who are nominated and have been inscribed -- subscribed for 2 years at least. We have the number the quorum is reached for this general assembly, ordinary and extraordinary. I declare it legally constituted. I'd like to mention that the documents that attest of this that it is duly presented, there are by my side, next to Jean-Pierre Sbraire and all the documents have been made available to all shareholders and given to those who asked for it previously. I'd like to remind you that the general assembly is together to answer to the agenda mentioned on Page 4 of the convening notice. The report in these conditions, I would like not to proceed to their reading and expense. We are now going to present you with -- before engaging the discussion, the different topics we would like to present to you, Jean-Pierre Sbraire is going to present you the financial results for financial year 2022 and beginning of '23, they justify for our -- the relevance of our strategic choices, operated by the Board of Directors and our multi-energy model we will come back to it. Our auditors will present you with the different reports established in the framework of this assembly and during a prerecorded session, Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette, your reference Director will all then tell you about the governance of your company. She will give account of the main works done by the committee and its -- and all of the members, the directors -- and will present you the different members for the renewal of your vote and nominations submitted to your vote. Jacques Aschenbroich will be the successor to Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette as Director, Senior Director and reference during this assembly, and we'll have this function in 2023. Mark Cutifani will present the remuneration details, this sequence is also prerecorded. Mark being an English speaker, we were able to add subtitles for his intervention. We will then -- I will follow up by a strategic point, the strategy of the company, the commitment for climate and sharing value and the outlook for our company. So this is it. So before giving the floor now to Jean-Pierre Sbraire, your Financial Director, you know that security is one of the values of the group, and I suggest to begin this general assembly with a film on security and the usage of drones in industrial landscapes. [Presentation]

Hello, everyone. The year 2022 was marked by the invasion of Ukraine, by Russia with -- in February '22, with serious consequences on the markets and energy market, especially. This crisis, namely has reset priorities and the necessity to ensure energy security for countries and as highlighted, the structural dependence of Europe vis-a-vis imports of gas from Russia and it generated very high tensions on oil, gas, gas prices and energy prices. In this context, the markets are constrained by the offer, the company has established a new record in terms of results of generating cash flow. And I will show you, we have been able to take advantage fully of our portfolio and our global integrated globally. And also the evolution of the markets and that of the LNG market, especially. The environment in '22 for energies was all planets were aligned in the energy sector, after the invasion of Ukraine and Russia and its consequences, in 2022, the prices have gone up to $100 per barrel increasing the -- this strong increase noticed during the first quarter of 2021 due to a lack of high investments in hydrocarbons. Prices have maintained at this very high levels in all of the 2022 year, namely supported by decisions in OPEC countries and the anticipation of the implementation of European sanctions on Russian oil sanctions that were implemented finally at the end of 2022. The refining margins very generally, conversely to the petrol share to the price of oil and the world global economy. But in 2022, it wasn't the case. Why? Because we had massive disruptions of the supply chain especially with the distillates due to the sanctions against Russia and embargoes -- European embargoes on crude and oil products. This has led to historical levels in 2022. It was the same thing for gas and especially for LNG -- as you know, with a production that is domestic -- that is limited in gas in Europe, Europe had to compensate on the reduction of important volumes of -- with this gas -- from these pipelines and doubling its imports of LNG in 2022. Therefore, thus, 10% on the market, the global markets on G&L. This contributed to skyrocket prices at levels never reached until then. The prices of electricity have evolved in the same way. They also were strongly impacted because the marginal offer for electricity set on deregulated markets is often generated by plants -- flexible plants that are based on gas. Let's come to the results. These oil and gas prices, these refining -- high refining margins have created a very favorable environment for TotalEnergies in 2022 but the company also benefited, thanks to its unique position in Europe to the high sales in LNG, more than 15% in -- over 15% in 2022. 2022 was a record year for TotalEnergies with a net adjusted result of $36.2 million. Taking into account the $15 million of depreciation and exceptional provisions we recorded in 2022 on Russia, the net IFRS result of your company established a $20.5 million. The profitability of own capitals has reached 32.2% and those of employed capital average -- in average 28%, showing that the portfolio of the company and its ability to benefit from these increased prices and a favorable environment. The cash flows generated by our operation. So prudent margin for auto financing on the side of these record benefits, TotalEnergies generated 46 million of self-financing in 2022. You see the different segments on the left side of this graph, all of the segments, all of these have recorded a growth in terms of contribution, assets and self-financing. Exploration and production brought in $25 million. It's a 39% increase compared to 2021 thanks to the increase of crude and gas that I mentioned before. Downstream contributed with $10 million, a contribution of the refining and chemistry with more than $8 million. It's 2.5x the contribution we had in 2021. And thus, thanks to use rate of refineries at 82%, which helps us benefit fully of the very high margins I mentioned before. The integrated LNG has contributed at a record level of $10 million and integrated Power, Renewable Energies, $1 million. I'll come back to this in the presentation. I'll come back to the two sectors that are growing for our company. On the left side, you can see how this cash flow that was generated in 2022 was spread between shareholders and distributed to finance also investments and reduced our debt. Let's start with the investments in blue. You see that in 2022, we allocated for this cash flow $16.3 million to our -- for net investments. I'll come back to it on the next slide. $14.5 million allocated to the reduction of our debt. This helped us to reduce our debt ratio. It was at 15% in 2021. And at the end of 2022, it's 7%, and finally, $17 million have been allocated to returns to shareholders. This is all the payout. So you can see in the -- all of the squares on the right-hand column. So we have $7.2 million that was given back to shareholders as ordinary dividends, $2.7 million in exceptional dividends, these that we paid out in December and $7 million for repurchases of buybacks of shares. So if we bring it together over 2022, we have a payout of 37.2%, therefore, in line with the engagements we took and commitments between 35% and 40% of cash flow returned to our shareholders. Investments. In 2022, they were up at $16.3 million. It's all of our organic net acquisitions, disposals. It's what we indicated to the market in February 2022. At the time, we gave a scale between $14 million and $15 million. Why? Because we decided last year to act in a proactive manner in light of the balance sheet that I presented to you and taking advantage of all the opportunities that the markets offered us. These opportunities, of course, created value. We ramped up our projects with short cycles. It was the case in Western Africa. It was also the case in the Northern Sea to benefit of the favorable environment of 2023 and 2024. And we also grasped certain opportunities for acquisitions in Brazil, in oil, offshore Brazil, but also in integrated power renewables in the United States with the acquisition of Clearway. It is important to note, in 2022 that the inflation didn't have a significant impact on the increase of investments. Why? Because finally, we kept very strict criteria in order to sanction our projects. On the right side, you can see the detail of the investments in 2022 per activity. I will note simply the $4 million, 25% of investments by the company allocated to integrated power, renewable electricity and low carbon energy. A focus on the two growing activities, integrated LNG and integrated power. The integrated LNG for negotiations in gas, biogas activities in hydrogen, but also gas negotiations -- well, gas trade. For integrated power, it covers generation activities, storage, trade in power distribution, B2C, B2B in gas and power. For integrated LNG, I said it in my introduction, sales of LNG increased by 15% in 2022, these sales have reached 48 million tons during the entire year. And thanks to our leader position and regasification in Europe, this enabled us to increase our spot volumes in this context with record demands in LNG in Europe. The company was able to take advantage fully of its global LNG integrated portfolio and the net adjusted result of integrated LNG, you can see it on the slide, has over gone $11 million. We were before -- before $10 million, we doubled compared to the previous year. The margin is at $10 million. So it's better than what we recorded in 2022. Let's now move to Integrated Power. An important metrics to remember, integrated power in 2022 generated a net adjusted result and an FFO of $10 million, this million is important because it's a new sector for the company. These results have been pulled by power production of 17 terawatts it's an increase, and this increase was reached thanks to a reuse rate of the CCGTs in Europe in the context described previously higher than in 2021 by an increase of 53% of the electricity production that comes from our portfolio of renewables. Our portfolio at the end of 2022 we had 17 gigawatts of renewable installed capacity. An important comment in order to give a better clarity to the understanding of our growth strategy for in LNG and renewables and power, we decided during the first quarter in 2023 to publish the results for these two sectors separately, integrated LNG on one side and integrated power on the other. Previously, these two sectors were grouped in one integrated GRP. 2022. So clearly, the company has started a new era. You know well that we evolve in a market that's cyclic according to the availabilities. The evolution of the Brent has been shown on the left, in the gray curve on the graph. So 2022, the price of -- was $101 per barrel. This was what we had known in the past, in particular, in 2008, we had a price that was slightly less than $100 per barrel. And in 2011, 2012, we had about $110 per barrel. But the big difference between TotalEnergies yesterday and TotalEnergies today is that -- back in the day with this price of about $100 per barrel. We were only generating less than $30 billion in cash flow. Today, I was saying it today, we have generated $46 billion so of course, we've been supported and helped at a positive effect of the gas price back in the -- today, we had a different -- and this is what we will see here also in orange on the left. And this effect in favor with the price gas compared to the reference years, we're about $100 per barrel. And today, we can say we can generate 40% additional cash flow. So where does this performance come from? This is what's been shown in the middle of the slide. This is the managing of our -- that point, we divided it by 4 between 2014 and 2015 and the current situation in 2022. Back in the day, we were at $100 per barrel, and now we are $25, so what is this break even? What is the third point? Well, it's about the rotation of our portfolio, the selectivity, the discipline of our investments, in particular, for oil and gas at low cost and low emissions, the management of our operating cost -- these are the elements that have allowed us to reduce and divide by 4 for this amount. Finally, this is on the right our financial situation has never been as solid with the generation of cash flow of $46 billion. I was telling you earlier, we have allocated $16 billion for lowering the debt. And we have -- now we have divided by 2 the debt of the company. We were at $24 billion of net debt end of 2021. And today, we are at $9 billion net debt end of 2022 so our ratio will be about 7% at the end of the year 2022. TotalEnergies today is a very profitable company, more efficient than in the past and it is largely out of debt. The situation of the company makes it more stronger, more resilient to maintain a generation of cash. And this is, of course, also a proof of security for future dividends. And this also gives us flexibility in order to implement the transition and our strategy. I will conclude here the presentation on the results 2022 by comparing the performance of TotalEnergies with other majors such as Shell BP, Chevron and Exxon. You can see here on the left, TotalEnergies has had the strongest growth in cash flow per share in 2022 compared to 2021 with a net cash flow by share of $13. TotalEnergies has also had the best advantage with its majors with an interest share of 28%. We also had with our European peers in terms of return to the shareholders over 3 years. This is linked also to the decisions of the Board of Directors to maintain the dividend through the COVID crisis in 2021. And finally, for ESG, environmental, social and governance, you also see that TotalEnergies has reached the best mark for -- by -- in the ranking for Sustainalytics compared to our majors. So to summarize, I'd say 2022 has been a historical year for TotalEnergies we've been able to show again how relevant our model is. And that it combines the excellence of our tasks around oil and gas, with investments that are resolved and confident towards new decarbonated energy with a business -- a power business, which is integrated and for the production of renewables. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jean-Pierre. For these results, indeed, it's a historic result and the company is coming out better than ever before. I now give the floor to [ Mr. Olivier Lotts ] from the PricewaterhouseCoopers who will, in the name of the colleagues establish the accounts in the name of our auditors.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders good morning and then on behalf of the [indiscernible] auditors EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers, I propose to report to you on our mission and the financial statements for the ended December 31, 2022. So for the year the special -- so reports on the annual and consolidated financial statements of the year the special reports, our regulated agreements and finally reports on proposed potential capital transaction are proposed in accordance with the practice of this assembly to [indiscernible] for you the terms of our reports. First of all, our report are on the annual and consolidated accounts being reminded that our audit approach and our procedures have taken into account the specificities of your companies, businesses and the purpose of our work in accordance with our professional standards is to obtain reasonable assurance that these accounts do not contain any material [indiscernible]. Under Resolution 1, our report of the annual accounts of the [indiscernible] company which are prepared accordingly to the French accounting principles and presented on Pages 592 to 595 of the universal registration document we have certified these accounts without reservation. We have set out in our report the keys points of the audit relating to the [indiscernible] company investments and related receivable. Furthermore, we have not issued any observations on the management report and the Board of Directors on corporate governance. Under Resolution 2, with regard to our report on the consolidated financial statement prepared in accordance with IFRS as adopted by the European Union and presented on Pages 408 to 413 of the universal registration document, we have certified these financial statements without reservation. Our audit approach to account specificities of the company and in terms of activity organization, account renewals and general control system. The audit committee and the Board of Directors were [indiscernible] performed the programs in our work representing 3 key points in the audit. The impact of climate change and energy transition on the financial statements, the assessment of the impairment and non-occurring assets of the exploration and production activities of the exploration and production integrated gas renewable power sectors, the impact of this dimension and proven developed hydrocarbon reserves on the depreciation of oil gas assets in products of EP and IGRP. Under resolution 5 our special report on regulated agreements which can be found on Page 262 of the universal agreement document. We have been noted -- notified of any new agreement during the 2022 financial year. In addition, the agreements of provision of premises free of charge to the Alliance of the indication United Way association which has been approved previous years continued for the 2022 financial year. Finally under Resolution 15 and 16, the issue reported [indiscernible] operation has not made any comments on the change of principle and the information given on the Board of Directors' report. Finally, we are using various authorization in connection with these resolution 15 and 16 and we might be called upon to draw when applicable, additional reports allowing the finalization of these capital transitions are carried out by our Board of Directors. That is it. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, we summarize our various reports concerning the financial year 2022. Thank you very much for attention.

So you can see that we have a convention on the association, and I am the President of it, and this is why it has been presented in this report. It's an association that aims at supporting 15,000 young people in difficult neighborhoods and orienting them professionally, putting them into contact with the professionals of various companies. So now we will continue talk about governance, with Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette. During the last assembly, I also gave her the floor -- she will now not be our reference director anymore because she's also being reelected. So she's going to talk about it herself, but I'd like to mention it to you first. Therefore, end her status as an Independent. And this is how we've done it in the Board of Directors previously in the committee as well. She's been the reference director. Therefore, we propose that the Senior Director remains for another mandate, allowing more continuity for our company. So therefore, Marie-Christine, I now give you the floor for the governance.

Thank you very much also to have introduced the subject -- it was delicate to talk about yourself. I'm very delighted to be able to talk in front of you today here in the Salle Pleyel with so many people more than last year. You have to know that your administrators are all present today as always. When our company is present during these key moments. It's with a certain emotion and a great pleasure that I'm going to present to you the actions of the Board of Directors, which have guided the good governance of your company during the year 2022. This is indeed emotional because your President has just said it, it's the last time that I will be speaking in front of you as a Senior Director, after 12 years at the Board, I will no longer have the status of independent director. So Jacques Aschenbroich will be taking over as a lead director, Senior Director of this General Assembly. He will be presenting later, his vision of his mission within the framework of his new responsibilities. So I would like to start my report by looking at the activity of your Board of Directors in 2022. So your Board and its 4 specialized committees. The audit, governance, ethics, compensation, strategy and social responsibility committees we're particularly mobilized and committed in 2022. They were committed in supporting the transformation of TotalEnergies into a multi-energy company. Your Board of Directors this met nine times during the year, and the committees have held 18 working sessions. More importantly, you can see it also on this slide, they have had 98% of attendance rate in average, which is quite remarkable. So this also highlights again this year, the strong involvement in the company's works. And as every year, we also have held a meeting of non-executive salaried directors, which I shared as a Senior Director. During this meeting, we discussed the work and operations of your Board of Directors, and we were particularly pleased with the relationship of trust established between your Chairman and CEO. Your trust is nourished by the listening and taking into account the various suggestions and questionings coming from your directors. It's also a trust that is being fed by the transparency and the quality of the subjects that are being presented and debated upon. Now let's come to the composition of the Board of Directors. TotalEnergies can count on the Board of Directors endowed with the plurality of professional skills and expertise. And this is the case, and it will be still thanks to the varied profiles of the 14 directors that compose it. At the end of this meeting, and subject to approval of the resolutions that we approved, your Board will be composed of 6 women and 8 men, and for the first time in the history of the company, it will have an international majority since 7 nationalities will be represented within it. It is, again, here, quite remarkable. This wide diversity of nationalities, cultures will enable TotalEnergies to strengthen, again, the match between the composition of the Board and the geographical exposure of the company's activities as well as the variety of points at stake to which it is exposed. For more than 2/3 of your directors, we have an expertise in the administration of large international companies. For a large majority of them, they have also recognized skills in the energy and industry sectors. And they also have an experience -- a significant experience in the areas of governance and risk management. And finally, several of them have experience in the field of sustainable development and climate. Moreover, the implementation of the transformation strategy to which the company is committed requires also a certain continuity in its governance because let's not forget, energy takes a long time. And this is why this year, the mandate of Mark Cutifani and mine are proposed to your vote for a new mandate of 3 years. Furthermore, the Board of Directors has decided to propose the general meeting -- to the general meeting, the appointment of two new independent directors, Mr. Dierk Paskert and Madam Anelise Lara, who are present here for a mandate of 3 years. I've had the pleasure and opportunity to meet them and audition them as part of the selection process. Their profiles, they will be presenting themselves to you in a video message that will be shown after my intervention. Their profiles will follow the transformation of the company. And this is what the Board wanted -- and this is how we will, therefore, be able to find an additional director with experience in electricity, power and renewables. And this is why we now propose them to be elected. Dierk is a national -- German nationality, and he's been CEO of Encavis AG, a listed company producing renewable electricity and who held several positions and E.ON, a large German utility company. So he has a great experience in the electricity and renewable business, which will contribute to the Board's support for the development of its electricity and renewable business. I now go over to Madam Anelise Lara, Brazilian nationality, who has an extensive experience in the oil and gas sector as well as Gas & Power. And she will be usefully complementing the various skills present within the Board. Her knowledge of Brazil is also very important to us given the importance of capitals committed by the company in this country, both in terms of hydrocarbons and renewable energies. She's also committed to diversity by helping young women move forward in their careers. Welcome to you. Mr. Paskert and Madam Lara will be introducing themselves in a video very soon. So that it is for the new members proposed to the election, but now in the name of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank those whose mandate will not be renewed. In particular, Patricia Barbizet, former Lead Director for exceptional contribution to the work of the Board and its committees over the past 15 years. We also would like to thank Jerome Contamine, who gave to the Board and Audit Committee, the benefit of his in-depth knowledge of financial matters and his expertise in the oil and gas sector. This is not a tradition, but I think we should give them an applause. Thank you to each and every one of you. Let's now move on to the work carried out by your Board since the last general assembly. It started with the beginning of the year, and it was dedicated to the accompaniment of the conduct to be followed in connection with the activities of the company in Russia in a terrible context, which constitutes the military aggression against Ukraine. I would like here to salute the speed and the relevance of the decisions of your general management, which have enabled the company to stay the course in the short term, while pursuing its long-term strategy. This process of support with Russia, which gave lead to quick decisions, of course, continued throughout the year, as you can see on this slide. During the year, the Board reviewed the company's major investments and divestments. Thus, I will cite just a few because they are quite numerous. The entry into the giant North Field gas field extension in Qatar, enabling the company to strengthen its global LNG portfolio and to contribute to Europe's energy security in the context of Ukraine. The second investment, a very important one, the acquisition of a stake in Casa dos Ventos, first renewable developer in renewables in Brazil. And for -- in another field, the final investment decision for the construction of a world-class petrochemical site in Saudi Arabia. Finally, as you can see on the right side of this slide, as we had committed to in 2022, the Board analyzed, studied and adopted the sustainability and climate progress report 2023. On the progress made by the company in implementing its ambition in terms of sustainable development and energy transition towards sustainability in carbon neutrality, which is submitted for your consultation today via the vote on the 14th resolution. Lastly, the other aspect of a role of a Senior Director is having a dialogue with shareholders. As each year, every year, this is a high point of the Director's duties. I had the opportunity to discuss with shareholders more than 20 -- holding more than 20% of the capital on the governance of the company gather their expectations and answer to their questions. From these meetings, I retain four main themes that you can see in the different colors on the slide. And there were the purpose, the object of intense sessions with a lot of transparency. The first concern is the Board itself, its composition, its operation and it's work related to the compensation policy for your Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In this context of the renewal or new appointment, there were different suggestions that especially was of interest to them. These are essential to guarantee a good governance and a good balance of powers in our company. Second big element of our discussions, climate and environment, which are essential themes of the company's commitment and engagement. Finally, the shareholders I met also wanted to know my point of view as a Senior Director on the investments decided by your Board. And Ultimately, all the questions were addressed and in particular, around projects they may have given rise to certain controversies such as our project in Uganda. So as a conclusion, this is what I wanted to add to ensure that your Board remains resolutely committed to supporting the company in its transformation over the coming years. And I would like to add to support the remarkable action of its President and CEO. At the end of this mandate and before giving the floor to our President, I would like to add something personal and say how much after 12 years of mandate, at the heart of TotalEnergies Board. I would like to share sincerely and authentically one comment of the -- on the excellency of TotalEnergies and its management of challenges around energy, its challenges concerning the energy transition with a strong determination, clairvoyance and the strength that really forces my admiration and respect, and I hope yours as well. And this is why I would like to congratulate all the shareholders, investors who are present for their trust given to TotalEnergies. And I think it is well deserved. I thank you for your attention. And sorry for this very personal message.

Thank you, Marie-Christine. Your personal message translates to your commitment alongside our company and for 12 years at my side. So I'd like to thank you since Patricia Barbizet is going to leave us. She has inaugurated the position as a lead director or senior director. And I would like to thank you, Patricia, as well for having supported us and continue to send pieces of advice at times as I [indiscernible] as well. So these are positions that are very important and even more so when -- because we have really important advisers as Jean-Pierre and all of the Board members that help in the functioning of this company. Thank you. So we'll welcome Jacques and listen to his video presentation by Dierk Paskert, who is at the front row and Mrs. Lara, who I'd like to honor and then Jacques will come on stage to tell me how he sees his role as a Senior Director. Let's move on to the next session.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear TotalEnergies shareholders. I would like to introduce myself, but please excuse myself for doing it in English. I'm German. And until end of 2022, I was a member of the Board and CEO of Encavis, an independent power producer from renewable energy sources. I'm committed to advancing the field of renewable energy by empowering corporates and private individuals to make net zero come true without -- and that is of paramount importance compromising on economic prosperity and financial solidity. I believe that we should be using natures and exhaustible sources of energy in a different way compared to the past. I did spend the vast majority of my working life in European power and gas markets, conventional as well as the renewable ones. My personal contribution to the journey of TotalEnergies will be very much focused on bridging the gap between belief, action and reality. Both strategic moves whilst carefully assessing the risk of ever volatile energy markets is part of my professional DNA. I will be supportive of finding the right direction by applying an integrated business model and I will have my critical points with regard to right timing and/or financial impact. Why did I accept the invitation of the Board of TotalEnergies to put my candidacy forward. From my point of view, TotalEnergies is best placed among the majors to successfully manage the change needed to make net zero come true because it is 100% committed and management as well as workforce does not compromise on the direction taken. If elected, I look forward to serving on TotalEnergies Board of Directors. I thank you for your trust.

Ladies and gentlemen, hello. My name is Anelise Lara, and I'm from Brazil. I have 37 years of experience in the energy sector. I am a chemist and engineer and I also have a PhD in earth sciences by Pierre and Marie Curie in France. I'm also certified in ESD programs, competent boards including for risk linked to climate change. I have worked for 35 years at Petrobras, the greatest energy company in Latin America. During this time, I had the opportunity to work in different activities and positions as a manager. I started my career in technological research. And since exploration and production where I was responsible for several development projects in production. Then I was invited to be part of the Board of Directors at Petrobras as General Director in Refinery Gas & Energy. Since 2021, I have left Petrobras and I started to serve as a Board member for companies in Brazil and abroad. I also work in favor of diversity by helping young women to advance their careers. I will be honored to be part of the Board of Directors of TotalEnergies in order to help the company in order to become a multi-energy company and a major actor in the energy transition with the dual challenge to satisfy in energy needs with a growing population by emitting less emissions and paying attention to global change. Thank you very much.

Before giving the floor to Jacques Aschenbroich, I'd like to say a word to say that the two candidates that the Board shows really represent the two voices for our strategy. One, in electricity, renewables and the other having the experience of hydrocarbons and both in countries that are very important for us, whether Germany in the future, today and Brazil as well. So thank you for your speeches. And I hope that the shareholders will support the Board's choice. Jacques Aschenbroich you can now -- will talk about his position as a Senior Director.

Dear shareholders, hello. In 2021, you were kind enough to show your confidence in me by appointing me and -- Director of your company. I would like to thank you once again for it. Today, I'm very honored to succeed Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette as Senior Independent Director of TotalEnergies. First of all, I would like to congratulate her on my behalf and for all the directors for the exemplary manner in which she has exercised this role of the Director for 3 years and sincerely thank Patrick Pouyanné and the members of the Board for entrusting me with this new responsibility. I would now like to share with you my missions as future Senior Director, mission that I would like to undertake to fulfill with enthusiasm and determination. Since 2015, at the initiative of Patrick Pouyanné, the internal regulations of the Board for the appointment of a Senior Director in the event of a combination of the functions of Chairman of the Board and Director of CEO as it is the case in your company in order to ensure a balance of power within it. In terms of governance, my role will be to ensure the proper functioning of governance within the Board. As such, I will have the privilege of chairing the Governance and Ethics Committee after having been a member of -- since May 25, 2022. As part of my new duties, I will also chair an annual meeting, which brings together external directors, as Marie-Christine said, that is to say those who do not hold executive or salaried positions within the company without the presence of the CEO. It allows external directors to review the functioning of the Board. I will also lead the process of a assessing the functioning of the Board of Directors on an annual basis. Finally, I would like to remind you that the Senior Director can request that the Board be convened on a specific agenda and that he or she is their preferred contact for the prevention of conflicts of interest. Furthermore, in liaison, with the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, I will take part in dialogue with shareholders, in particular, on matters of corporate governance as Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette had the opportunity to illustrate in her speech. In conclusion, the Senior Director is the privileged inter-locators spokesperson with the Board, with the CEO, both on major matters relating to the company's business and of course, on the preparation of the Board meetings. I thank you for your trust and your attention.

Thank you, Jacques. Thank you very much for accepting this mission. And we will have the opportunity to work together because the rule says I need to meet you every month to take a look at our business. Thank you for accepting the mission. I will now come to the Mark Cutifani presentation on the remuneration and the CEO, it's a recorded video, but Mark is here with us as well. You will have a simultaneous translation on screen. Thank you.

Good day to all shareholders. My name is Mark Cutifani, and I have the honor of chairing the Compensation Committee working alongside Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette, Jacques Aschenbroich, and [indiscernible] as the employer representative. Today, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I'm very pleased to present the company's 2022 compensation policies and the 2023 compensation policy for your Board and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. As I wrote you in a letter published in our universal registration document, the Compensation Committee met three times during the year and reviewed market developments and the company performance to assess where the current practices remain appropriately competitive and with a sufficient focus on strengthening the link between pay and performance. Regarding the compensation of your directors, two resolutions are submitted for your approval. Resolution #10, on the left-hand side of the screen concerns the approval of information relating to the 2022 compensation for Directors. This amount is set for each Director on the basis of his or her actual attendance at each Board or committee meeting. The maximum annual compensation package was set by the shareholders' meeting in 2020 at EUR 1.75 million. The cap of EUR 1.75 million has been exceeded during fiscal year 2022 due to the large number of meetings and the high attendance rates of Directors which led to a reduction in the individual compensation of around 4.4%. Therefore, the global amount of 2022 compensation paid to Directors was limited at the cap of EUR 1.75 million. The resolution #11 on the right-hand side of the screen, submit for your approval of the 2023 compensation policy for the Directors. In addition to reduction for individual compensation that took place in 2022, the increase in the number of non-French directors, and that's chain from 5 to 7 which is proposed to you under Resolutions #8 and #9, will result in an increase in travel fees, which are considered in the overall cap for the directors' compensation. The current average annual compensation of directors is at the top of compensation for listed companies under French law, but is lower than that of directors of other CAC 40 companies such as Airbus, ArcelorMittal and Stellantis. While the size and results of total energies can be reasonably compared to each. Given these various elements, the Board of Directors has decided to propose to you an increase in the annual compensation package for directors from EUR 1.75 million to EUR 1.95 million, that is an increase of 11% compared to the current amount. Such amount would then be reviewed every 2 to 3 years, depending on inflation or other matters that may occur from time to time. Now let's turn to the 2022 compensation for your Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, which is composed of fixed compensation, variable compensation and performance shares. In 2022, the fixed compensation component amounted to EUR 1.55 million as supported in the last shareholders' meeting. The variable compensation which the payment is conditional to the approval of the resolution #12, amounted to EUR 2.731875. That is 176.25% of the annual fixed compensation out of a maximum of 180%, awarded after strict compliance of the results of the economic parameters and the evaluation of the CEO's personal contribution. Please note that such a high level of variable pay also reflects the exceptional level of performance achieved by your company under the leadership of Patrick Pouyanné. The Board believes these results reflect his strong company leadership. Finally, 100,000 performance shares have been granted to the CEO subject to performance conditions. The final number of shares granted will depend on TotalEnergies share performance and the annual change in net cash flow per share compared to its main competitors. The organic breakeven point before dividends and the evolution in greenhouse gas emissions from TotalEnergies operated oil and gas facilities. The final allocation of these shares will then only take place in 2025. As a result of these decisions, the 2022 compensation of the Chairman and CEO of your company increased by 10% compared to the 2021 compensation and that's managed at constant share price. Now coming to the 2023 compensation policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, which is set out in Resolution #13, submitted for your approval. This compensation policy has been, as every year, reviewed and compared with that of his peers and with market practice. The results of this detailed analysis, which is included further in this document, reinforced the Board of Directors conviction that the proposed compensation components and structure for 2023 are at the appropriate level. The Compensation Committee has therefore recommended to the Board of Directors, it maintains the compensation policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, as approved by the shareholders meeting on May 28, 2021. The base salary remains unchanged compared to 2022 at EUR 1.55 million. The number of performance shares attributed to the Chairman and the CEO in 2023 is 110,000 following the decision approved by the shareholders' meeting. As gradually increasing the attribution in the period of 2021 and 2023 to better align the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer's compensation with the market and the company's shareholders. Regarding the variable annual compensation based on his review and feedback, the Compensation Committee recommended to the Board of Directors to make the following changes to the compensation policy. First, we changed the structure of the variable annual compensation which was allowing to compensate for outperformance on quantitative financial criteria. The feedback received from our shareholders and proxy advisers was such that the structure was supporting an incrementally more positive compensation effect between financial criteria in the event of exceptional performance. Although such performance compensation additions between the criteria did not occur and had no impact on 2021 and 2022 compensation as all financial criteria had almost reached the maximum thanks to the exceptional results of your company. The Compensation Committee recommended to the Board of Directors to remove the outperformance mechanism to prevent any potential additions to compensation that may not be intended. Following the very strong improvement of the company's balance sheet, the committee also recommended the replacement of the gearing ratio criteria by a new criterion underlying cash flow growth corresponding to the variation in cash flow from operations or CFFO, excluding market prices effect. This criteria is a key metric to measure the profitable growth of the company. It is central in the financial communication of the company to investors as it underpins the growth of the ordinary dividend since it measures the growth in cash generated by the company year-on-year, and that excludes the effect of market prices. So that is the underlying cash flow growth. Lastly, in terms of policy changes, we introduced a clawback mechanism in the variable compensation of the company executive officers without waiting for the recently adopted Securities and Exchange Commission rule to take effect. And based on shareholders' feedback as well as the review of the market practices, the Compensation Committee recommended to the Board to review the stock ownership policy and increase our Chairman and Chief Executive Officers as well as executive committee stock ownership requirement from 2 years to 5 years for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officers and 4 years for the Executive Committee. This enhanced holding requirement will be in addition to the current requirement for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, to retain 50% of the shares from performance share plans until the end of his term. We strongly believe that this best-in-class policy will contribute to further align our executive compensation and shareholder interest in creating long-term value. On behalf of the Compensation Committee, I would like to thank you for your feedback and support which we will continue to seek in our regular reviews and improvements of our compensation policies to make sure that they are aligned with the interest of our shareholders and, of course, we will always seek to fully meet all legal requirements. Thank you for your time and your attention.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, it's again a great pleasure to meet you today in the Pleyel room. First of all, I'd like to thank the 500 shareholders who are present here today in the meeting room and who have been brave enough to join us. I hope that you are happy. I'm very glad that you're here because I particularly want to have this dialogue with shareholders because it's the heart of our company. I also would like to greet all those who are following us today on our website. If -- I'd like again to say how much of a regret it is to have these conditions in place that we've had to make -- implement measures for security. I'm deeply sorry for this. And I think the respect of the year that whatever the opinion is with the value of our company, I'd like to share it with all our shareholders. This year, again, we've had the opportunity to share our expectations and questions ahead of the general meeting by setting up a platform on our website from the 5th to the 19th of May. This is a site where we were able to ask your questions, and we'll be able to use them during this session at the end. But first of all, the priority will be given to the dialogue with people present in the room. I'd also like to take this opportunity to salute the 1.5 million nonemployee individual shareholders that we were able to count in Europe and the U.S. in 2022. They have been increased and are now 13.6% of the capital. Together with these employees, therefore, more than 20% of the capital of TotalEnergies, which is being held by natural persons. This is quite remarkable because it's also a guarantee of stability of our shareholding. Firstly, and as it is a tradition in our general assembly, I'd like to come back to the year 2022, which has been an exceptional year in several aspects, in particular, from a geopolitical point of view and also because of the upheavals caused by the War in Ukraine and the impacts on the energy prices. A year that I would describe in [ Trees of Paradox ] for TotalEnergies as well as for our societies debates. 2022 has been marked economically by a sharp rise in oil prices, over $100 per barrel and also reaching prices for gas and LNG that have never been reached before. This phenomenon with the direct consequence of the Ukrainian crisis, which amplified an upward trend, which has already been taken -- implemented in 2022 due in particular to recurring underinvestment in oil production combined with a demand for oil and gas that has returned to pre-COVID levels. In this exceptional and highly volatile price environment, our company has demonstrated the relevance of its multi-energy strategy by being the most profitable major but also the one who has invested the most into new renewable energies. This is the first point on which I'd like to dwell. Among the 5 majors, TotalEnergies has indeed been profitable company in 2022 with a return on capital employed of over 28%, demonstrating the financial solidity of its business model. This remarkable performance is no coincidence. And it was achieved even though your company has been engaged since 2020 and a strategy to transform its business model because we fully assume the multi-energy strategy symbolized by our transition from Total to TotalEnergies. This strategy is based on a balance between, on one hand, the desire to assume a share of the supply of oil and gas, the energies that we need today and that allow us all to live. And on the other hand, the desire to build a player that is strong in the field of electricity, integrated across the entire value chain from production, in particular, renewable energies up to marketing. In oil, our strategy is to respond to a demand that remains high. But also to adapt, particularly on the adaptation of a drop in demand around 2030. In 2022, TotalEnergies continued to refocus its oil portfolio on assets and projects that are low cost or less than $20 per barrel and with low greenhouse gas emissions, so less than 19 kilos per barrel. This strategy is materialized in Brazil with entries in the fields of Sepia and Atapu, whose production immediately benefited from high prices. And more recently, also, in SARB and Umm Lulu in the concession of in Abu Dhabi. Thanks to this strategy, TotalEnergies has now a more resilient and profitable portfolio. TotalEnergies ambition in oil is to maintain its production over the decade before adapting it to the drop in demand and in order to be able to prepare to this drop in demand in Europe to realign our defining capacities and distribution on our production. I remind you that the oil fields are naturally declining by 3% to 4% per year and that to maintain our production, we must invest in new oil fields. I also remind you that the demand for oil worldwide is growing. And that if it is not TotalEnergies that meets demand, others will do it in our place. It is not TotalEnergies alone that will decide what our customers' needs are. Even if we act on demand, and we do act on demand by diversifying our energy offer, which is moving and evolving as I will explain it towards less carbon-intensive energies. In this strategy, we also have adopted the growth strategy in LNG, in particular, because of the positive role of gas in the energy transition and this for 2 main reasons. Firstly, because this energy makes it possible to ensure the reliability of the supply of electricity to customers while compensating the intermittency of renewable energies. Then because gas allows the substitution to call in electricity generation in many countries, and that gas is much more -- much less polluting than coal. We have assessed that our LNG sales in 2022 will be substituted to coal and fuel oil for the production of electricity has -- have contributed to avoiding approximately 70 million tonnes of CO2 in 2022. And Marie-Christine has expressed it, we have strengthened our position as a player for LNG with new projects in Qatar. These decisions will make it possible to contribute the security of LNG supply in Europe in the next years as we were also able to do it in 2022. Dear shareholders, you will note that in this area, TotalEnergies has once again taken its responsibilities very rapidly. From the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, we have mobilized to contribute to this energy security of the countries in the European Union. We have done this by publicly articulating the responsible principles of actions by which we conduct our activities in relation to Russia. We also participated in the creation of new importation of liquefied gas import points in Europe by bringing in floating regasification terminals that were positioned in other regions of the world. I'm here thinking about the projects in Lubmin in Germany, which were inaugurated at the start of January but also projects located in the harbor of [indiscernible], which will be commissioned by the end of September. Thus thanks to this position as #1 in regasification in Europe, TotalEnergies has been a significant contribution to -- for the security of supply on the continent by covering more than 20% of Europe's LNG needs. Finally, this is the final pillar of our strategy for a multi-energy company in 2022. Again, our company was the major which invested the most to build the energy model of tomorrow, which will be based on electricity, in particular, from renewable capacities and new molecules that will be low carbon. Nearly $4 billion were invested in 2022, and this figure will increase further in 2023 to reach $5 billion. And I confirm, contrary to what some imply that these investments do not include investments in gas and LNG, but only electricity and low-carbon molecules, such as biofuels, biogas, hydrogen and carbon capture. I'd like to emphasize as well how much we have accelerated the investments in the energy transition, $2 billion in 2020, $3 billion in 2021, $4 billion in 2022, $5 billion in 2023. These investments will represent 1/3 of our investments each year over the rest of the decade, which is quite significant and will allow us to build a tool that will supply a mix of energy products, less carbon emissions and better products to our clients. And to those who call as green washers, let's talk about these investments. In 2022, we acquired 50% of the fifth renewable developer for $1.6 billion. We have invested in offshore wind projects for $1.2 billion in the U.S., Scotland, Thailand. We have invested in solar projects in France and the U.S. for $700 million for biogas, biofuels, CO2 storage -- $300 million investments. And in 2023, we continue in this momentum with a 100% acquisition of Total Eren for nearly $2 billion, participation in the developer of renewable energies, Casa dos Ventos for $500 million. We invest also in solar projects in Spain, France and the U.S. for $1.4 billion, and we accelerate our efforts in biofuels, biogas, hydrogen for $800 million. Therefore, for the $10 billion investments that we are making in new capacities, half is devoted to new energies to build the carbon-free energy for tomorrow. Half to hydrocarbons to continue to provide the energy that our societies need, especially the populations of emerging countries who aspire to a better standard of living. The shareholders, as you can see, your company has been committed since 2020 to an ambitious strategy of balanced transformation, consolidating profitable growth and sustainable development in order to meet the challenges of providing more energy to an ever-growing population. But the company has also set itself the objective of reducing its emissions with the ambition of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 together with society and thus actively participating in the energy transition. And this is the second point that I would like to mention now in this presentation. Beyond the very good financial results that have been presented to you. We are also proud of the concrete progress made in terms of energy transition and reduction of our emissions. Our continued project -- progress in 2022, in line with our 2030 objective demonstrates year-after-year resolute commitment to the transformation of your company on the way to its ambition for 2050. While we have accelerated the level of investment in low-carbon energies, as I have just explained to you, we have also proposed during this general assembly to strengthen our emission reduction targets. For emissions relating to our operated facilities, those we call Scope 1 and 2 the -- those directly linked to our industrial activities, the reduction in -- of our CO2 emissions and our operations was nearly between 30% in 2015 and reference year 2022. The efforts are there for real, and we have real results as well. On the other hand, as you know, we have started to create a fleet of gas-fire power plants as part of our electricity strategy, which conversely, emitted 7 million tonnes of carbon in 2022, a very high level because it is in Europe, and we have contributed in the context of a crisis to supply energy in order to compensate the different shortages. The reduction at the global level of the company was more than 13% in 2022 compared to 2015. But in March 2023, the Board decided to strengthen our objectives to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions with a new objective and absolute value of 38 million tonnes of CO2 from 2025 compared to 40 million tonnes previously. This is made possible thanks to the mobilization of all of our teams on a $1 billion program over 2 years dedicated to the energy efficiency of our sites. This program whose return on investment is less than 4 years, is clearly in line with our strategy to be a low-cost, low-emission energy producer. Reducing methane emissions is also essential for a company like ours, given our growth strategy in natural gas which will represent half of our sales in 2030. Of course, in this context, we must be modeled on the subject of methane emissions, which was identified as a major issue during the different cups in Glasgow and Sharm El-Sheikh. This is why in your report, sustainability and climate in 2023 that we submit -- the Board submits -- that you submit to the Board of Directors. Today, we have confirmed our ambition to move towards zero methane as well as our objective of reducing methane emission by 50% in 2025 and 80% in 2030. We are well on the way to achieving these objectives, in particular, thanks to the development by our research teams of a technology for measuring and detecting methane emissions considered to be the most precise in the world today. It has just been acknowledged by the European Union and the United States in a partnership with the University of Colorado to implement measuring methods that are qualified on the global level. This technology is installed on drones that you have seen in the video previously, and it is deployed in all of our sites. We also allow our partners to benefit from it on sites that we do not operate. If the management of Scope 1 and 2 and methane emissions is fully our direct responsibility because we can add directly on them, we are also committed to contributing to the reduction of our customers' emissions. This year, we are strength -- we have decided once again in the report to strengthen the objective and reduce the carbon intensity of the energy mix we sell to our customers since we are suggesting to have minus 20% and minus 25% by 2030 compared to 2015 and 15% in 2025. This indicator has already decreased by 12% since 2015, which places clearly TotalEnergies as a leader among its peers in the decarbonization of its energy mix. This decarbonization trajectory is ambitious and in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement to keep the increase in global average temperature well below 2 degrees above preindustrial levels. You will find in the report, Sustainability and Climate '23, the details of how we can assess the alignment of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction targets with the NZE scenario at 1.5 degrees of the International Energy Agency as well as the realignment of our objective of reducing the carbon intensity of the energy mix sold to our customers with the APS scenario at 1.7 degrees the same IEA. In this context, it seems relevant to -- for me now to address more general question of Scope 3 and the resolution proposed by a group of shareholders. This resolution invites the Board of Directors to align its existing reduction targets for 2030, covering greenhouse gas emissions for the use of its energy product Scope 3 with the Paris Climate Agreement. It implies that Scope 3 emissions could, as such, be aligned with the Paris Agreement by the sole will of the company, TotalEnergies and that the strategy adopted by the company would be insufficient in this respect. Dear shareholders, I would like to tell you in all honesty, that this resolution does not provide a credible response to the challenges of climate change. It is contrary to the interest of the company, its shareholders and its customers. First, I should -- I would like to remind you for all intents and purposes, the Scope 3 is the sum of Scope 1 and other economic actors who make decisions to use energy and set their needs. To give you a concrete example, when we sell Kerosene for air transportation, the emissions associated to the use of this Kerosene is in Scope 1 of the air company -- the aircraft company. But how many passengers would -- it's also the same emissions for -- under Scope 3 for manufacturing engine. In this way, Scope 3 does not add up. They are redundant and only Scope 1 are additive and make it possible to report on the actions taken on greenhouse gas emissions by each of the players who are directly responsible for the emissions. In fact, all of this case is a question of chain and cooperation between all actors. Adopting this resolution, will make the company responsible and only responsible for these emissions. We do not intervene in the chain of production or sale of goods and equipment that consume energy or require energy for their manufacturing. We do not manufacture planes, automobile. We cannot be made responsible for the reduction of emissions linked to the manufacturing of these goods by clients. Let's not be mistaken. And this is our duty as a responsible industrial player to act in order to help transform the energy demand of our customers and thus help them to reduce their Scope 1 and 2. We are thus, developing our offer to offer a wider range of energy products, including low carbon ones by -- for example, in the aviation sector to have sustainable aviation fuels. We also support our customers in their decarbonization plans. But it is the concerted actions of all the players in the chain that can have a concrete impact on global greenhouse gas emissions and change energy consumption patterns. Asking a company like TotalEnergies to drastically reduce its Scope 3 world and absolute value as proposed by the resolution implies without the customers themselves having reduction targets for their Scope 1 and the overall structure of energy demand does not change as, in fact, ineffective in reducing emissions at the global level. On the contrary, it would only lead to directing this energy demand to other suppliers, in particular, state oil companies whose transition plans when they exist are far from being as ambitions -- ambitious as those of actors such as TotalEnergies. Your Board of Directors also considers that the resolution proposed by this group of investors is contrary to the interest of the company and its shareholders. It would push TotalEnergies to dispose of assets and produce energies. Therefore, emissions, thus would be, at the same time, an obstacle to the implementation of our ambition. It requires an important investment and value creation in the interest of our shareholders in order to follow our transition. It's what is beneficial to climate is to build the new energy system that the world needs today, and we are working on it strongly. As you can see, climate is at the heart of our concerns. We are convinced by the credibility and this is why we are submitting to you today for the third year in a row, the progress achieved to your vote and consultation to a wide majority shareholders were in favor of our resolutions last year. And not only have we shown that we were able to hold our target and we can also strengthen as we are doing these objectives in order to ramp up in our transition. We hope that you will renew your trust by voting for Resolution 14 and against Resolution A. To be a global company is -- to take this is the last part of my speech, is to take advantage of the market economy and create value and is also to share this value. Fair sharing practice by our company is what I want to talk to you right now. We are creating value in nearly 130 countries where we are present, and we must -- it is our social responsibility to share it by taking care of our stakeholders without whom we could not develop our activities. It is also important to us to be fully transparent on the way in which this value is redistributed to our employees in the first place to our customers, the states and to you, ladies and gentlemen, our shareholders. In 2022, your company generated a historical high figure of $75 billion in added value. Some have spoken of super profits and they need to tax them. First, let me say that I don't know what super profits means. Yes, TotalEnergies has made profits last year higher than 2021 because energy prices themselves were very high, but these profits, first and foremost, and I want to emphasize this, the fruit of the work of the 100,000 employees of your company. And it is also the fruit of the successful strategies that TotalEnergies has implemented such as, for example, betting on liquefied natural gas a few years ago. We are proud of these achievements, which have enabled us to achieve excellent results in 2022 and at the start of 2023. Regarding the taxation of profits, which has been at the center of many debates in our country. I would like to recall the reality of the situation of your company. In 2022, TotalEnergies has paid $33 billion in taxes and duties globally. We have gone from $16 billion in taxes paid in 2021 to $33 billion in 2022, more than double, and our average tax rate has been over 40%. It's not just nothing. We pay taxes in all the countries in which we produce energy, and we have benefits. Then, of course, we share our profits, and this is obviously fundamental to us with our employees. In 2022, we paid an exceptional bonus to all of our employees worldwide corresponding to 1 month compensation. In France, our employees on the common social base are around 14,000 employees benefited from a salary increase of 7.5% to take into account inflation. This measure was supplemented by a 15% increase in the budgets for bonuses for workers and supervisors and variable portions for executives. The increase in compensation of -- was about 10% in average for managers on the common social base, so this is added for French employees. The incentive participation, which was an average of EUR 9,000 last year with a floor of -- ceiling of EUR 7,000. Furthermore, our company is very attached to the development of employee share ownership. It is at the heart of our value sharing policy because it represents the best way to involve employees in the economic performance of the company to strengthen their sense of belonging and above all, to align their interest with your shareholders of the company. The decision taken in 2015 by your Board to carry out a capital increase every year compared to every 2 years previously with the discount reserved for employees bears witness to this, as does the continuous increase in the scope of allocation of performance shares, which now concerns more than 11,000 employees worldwide. And this year, again, the employees of TotalEnergies confirmed their attachment to the company by largely subscribing to the capital increase operation reserved for them, 46% of employee subscribe. That is a participation rate up by 5 points for a total amount of more than EUR 350 million. That is an average of EUR 7,000 in savings invested in the company. This increase is the result of a measure resulting from social dialogue within the company since we accepted the request of representative organizations that employees can use their profit sharing from 2023 to reinvest in the company. As Chairman and CEO, I am proud of this and it reinforces my conviction that the employees fully support the strategy of transforming TotalEnergies into a multi-energy company. Furthermore, I also welcome the recent publication of the European Federation of employee ownership which ranks TotalEnergies as the second largest European company for employee ownership based on the amount of capital held by employees. Indeed, more than 65% of TotalEnergies employees or shareholders that hold more than 7% of the capital of the company and as such, received in 2022, approximately EUR 700 million in dividends. I would also like to salute the quality of the social dialogue, which enabled us to present to you, our shareholders, the resolution abolishing double voting rights with the support of our employee shareholders because, in fact, this dual votes that benefited to nominative shareholders for more than 2 years, benefits today to our employees in the framework of an ambitious project -- as part of an ambitious agreement, which aims to bring employee shareholding to 10% of shareholders, we have agreed on conditions, which will make it possible to promote even more in 2024 and the following year's access to shareholding by our employees. TotalEnergies shares as profits with its customers as well. The context of geopolitical crisis has resulted in a very long tensions on the energy markets, prices soared to exceptionally high levels in 2022 and remain high today. This has significant impacts. We are well aware on purchasing power, particularly in France. It is an essential good. We are -- we have led actions in France to contribute to limit the increase of -- in the cost of energy in daily life for clients. In our service stations first to cope with the rise in fuel prices, TotalEnergies made discounts. Very soon from February '22 in its service stations in rural areas, and throughout the year, we continue to support our customers with rebates at the pump, which represented more than EUR 500 million in 2022. In 2023, we also committed against rising fuel prices by guaranteeing that the price of our diesel and petrol fuels does not exceed EUR 1.99 per liter in all of our 3,400 service stations in France. We all have also been at the site of our electricity and gas customers, for example, by helping small and medium-sized companies in our country to cope with the rising cost of energy by granting them discounts and allowing them to smooth their charges when necessary. Finally, we, alongside these measures, have encouraged and it's important during this crisis to have energy sobriety. During '22, '23, we put in place what we call the consumer bonus to reward our private customers and small professionals who save at least 5% of their electricity consumption during the winter compared to the previous winter. This call has been heard, and we are happy about it thus, during the winter '22, '23, more than 50% of our customers eligible for the bonus reduced their consumption by more than 5%, compared to the previous winter, and we are happy to give them a check of EUR 90 on average, a cost of EUR 100, approximately for us, a virtuous initiative that not only decreases bills, but helps the consumption per inhabitant and the corresponding emissions. Finally, last aspect, I cannot forget you for sharing value, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, since in 2022, the return to our shareholders represented 37.2% of the company's cash flow, thus $17 billion. As you know, we are committed to creating lasting value and profitability to ensure the profitability and sustainability of your investments within our company over the past 10 years. The average annual gross return on the share has been at 10.44%, considering on the one hand, the dividends that were paid and this share. The dividends have never decreased since 1992, 40 years now. Even when -- 1982 sorry. So even when your company has gone through crisis like the one linked to COVID, this is a strong act of confidence in the company on the part of your Board. In the period of transformation of the company, it is essential in our view to maintain and even strengthen the confidence of our shareholders with a breakeven point incurred below $25 per barrel as was shown previously. TotalEnergies is now much more profitable than 10 years ago at equivalent barrel and gas prices, your company has generated $15 billion of additional cash flow in 2022. Therefore, as explained, our debt ratio fell shortly to 7%, which allows us to accelerate our transformation strategy and offer an attractive shareholder return policy. In this context, in last September, your Board decided that from now on, we would allocate between 35% to 40% of cash flow. We believe that we will ensure these results the Board has thus decided to have this measure and to allocate 35% to 40% of cash flow. For 2022, a $7 million share buyback program was carried out and an exceptional interim dividend of EUR 1 per share was paid in December 2022 to approval today. Beyond -- we consider that shares of TotalEnergies are comparable when compared to American competitors has a margin to maneuver and the investments of our company will, I hope, reach the same levels as our American competitors. Beyond the impact on dividends, this buyback of shares also helps increase capital, pay performance shares to our employees in order to facilitate certain acquisitions as we did for the buyback of Maersk Oil comforted by in 2027. Encouraged by the good results for 2022, your Board of Directors recently confirmed the increase by 7.25% of the first interim dividend for 2023 financial year, EUR 20.75 per share as well as the buyback of up to $4 billion worth of stocks in the first half of 2023. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, these last few months have finally proved to us that it is possible to be a profitable company and even the most profitable while transforming, lowering our emissions, investing massively in the energies of tomorrow and also sharing the value with all of our stakeholders whether our employees, our customers and our host states and our shareholders. And in the same way that we are equipped to face the challenges of the world macroeconomic uncertainties. The IE -- AI, sorry, interest rates, inflation, geopolitical uncertainties, the rise of artificial intelligence, we are also equipped to respond contradictory -- to these contradictory injections of energy and climate because we have the firm conviction that our transformation is based on a balanced strategy that we assume and that we claim more energy, fewer emissions for the benefit of all of our employees, our customers and for you, dear shareholders. I'm proud to be the Chairman and a Chief Executive who is resolutely committed to being a positive actor in the energy transition. I'm proud of the commitment of the employees of TotalEnergies without whom nothing would be possible and who demonstrate they will -- their will that our strategy be crowned with success. I am proud of our shareholders who have trusted us for many years and are supporting us in this transition. Thank you for your trust and loyalty. I now go over to the questions.

First, the written questions. We have 12 shareholders asking questions in the framework of the regulation. It's the [indiscernible] responsible investment, Madam [indiscernible], the initiative for citizen shareholding, [indiscernible] Sycomore AM, Asset Management, Greenpeace France [indiscernible], AXA Investment Managers and [indiscernible]. The text of these questions as well as the answers given by the Board will be able to be consulted on the totalenergies.com website on the shareholders general assembly in the next few days. So the people who have sent us questions outside of the regulatory framework will receive an answer via mail. I now -- I think we can open up the debate. As every year, we will be answering most questions that will be asked in the room or maybe also additionally on the platform with a priority given again to the questions asked by the shareholders present physically. I'd like to reiterate to the intention of our guests that the word is reserved to the shareholders. I'd like to -- for you to limit yourself to 1 question as such most people can participate in the discussion. I'd like also to respect the debate and listen to people when they take the floor. There will be time on the screen in order for you to respect the time you have to express your question. We can now start. It's difficult for me to see -- point to maybe if someone wants to take the floor.

PFA Denmark. It's the largest commercial pension fund with approximately 1.3 million customers and close to 80 billion assets under management. At PFA, we value the openness and willingness that TotalEnergies has demonstrated when engaging with PFA and other shareholders. We support TotalEnergies strategy to build a multi-energy company, fit for Net-Zero in 2050, and we acknowledge the progress made so far. Meanwhile, CapEx directed to new oil and gas products that lock in future emissions are being criticized for being incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement and, consequently, a Net-Zero ambition. We welcome TotalEnergies disclosure of how you estimate the alignment of your 2030 Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon intensity targets with IEA's 1.7 degrees an ounce [indiscernible] scenario. Yet going forward, we would strongly welcome that you disclose and quantify how you assess the alignment of your CapEx plans with your decapitalization targets and hence, the Paris Agreement? What is your perspective on this, please?

This is a question that comes back very often. I'm going to try to answer this across what I have just said, the debate, the challenge is that at the same time, we need to produce the energy that we need today, but also construct a decarbonized system for tomorrow. We have developed our CapEx allocation, our investments. In 2014, 2015, we invested between $20 billion and $25 billion, $15 billion of them were concentrated only for new hydrocarbon projects. In 2023, we have invested less globally because $20 billion, $25 billion is too much. So $16 billion, more or less, and only $5 billion in hydrocarbons and $5 billion in new energy. So this is a deep evolution. And on that side, again, we consider that we are on a trajectory in terms of emissions that will allow us to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. It is difficult. The question of alignment that you mentioned because we have tried to answer it and we do answer it across the experts that we ask questions in the Climate and Sustainability report. And we also try to assess, as I said, if the carbon intensity of the product and the energy that we supply to our customers is evolving in the right direction. As you said in your question, a reduction of minus 25% between 2015 and 2030 is indeed in line with the scenario of 1.7 degrees of the International Energy Agency. And Furthermore, I also highlight that globally speaking, and I know that some shareholders also make reference to the transition initiative, supporting the action for climate. So the TPI experts confirm that the long-term objectives of TotalEnergies is sufficiently ambitious to reach this 1.7 goal by 2050. And there's only 3 companies that do so from over 50 and they have been analyzed, and they have received this qualification. So the idea, and I think I have mentioned it in my speech that we need to stop investments in hydrocarbon projects. Although, as I said as well, the production is declining by 3%, 4% and the demand is continuously growing. This is not the strategy that we'll be following for this decade. We're following a strategy that allows us to maintain -- not to increase but maintain production and accelerate on new energies. The alignment, furthermore, we also translated by the trajectory of Scope 1 and 2 emissions of our operations, where our ambition of reduction is 40%, and this is also in line with these scenarios. And again, we have asked to third parties to confirm whether this is good or not. So this is the answer that I can give you. I note your support and the useful dialogue that we have with PFA, also your investment fund. And where we disagree, however, on the background with the Net-Zero goal is that we should stop investments into the project. If we would stop investments now, we cannot respond to the demand, which is growing still. And if we do not do it as TotalEnergies, other companies will do it in our place. And this is, therefore, the debate on climate change, where concerted action on demand, on need, needs to take place, not just on the offer because otherwise, if we reduce the offer, maybe also this would be -- this would mean that the prices would rise strongly. This is not what the clients want, and this is not a just transition. I see number five. I'll go around.

President, [Foreign Language]. In complement of the question that's just been asked. I'd like to thank you for the general assembly in person and not virtually, no matter the issues there is to get here. I'd like to thank Total for the improvement, the transparency for this climate goal for your ambition, compare the decisions that we've had in 2012, and I'm very glad to see where we got to today. But I think there's really an ambiguity in what you present and what your shareholders expect. You know that the European taxation is coming to Europe. It will force all institutional shareholders to come out of companies that have fossil fuels with -- if they don't have clear goals of Net-Zero by 2050, so this is very simple for the Board of Directors and yourselves. So given what you said, given your strategy if we do think that by 2050, we will have [indiscernible] in renewable energies in TotalEnergies or will we still have fossil fuels because all this will depend on the shareholders' activities. And I would regret that in 3, 5 years, there will be no more French shareholders in the Total Capital.

I would think it is a shame as well because we looked at this exercise of tax activity. And we already -- just last year had exercises on that, and we had a confirmed exercise, 31% investments are in line on the European taxonomy and about what I just described to you. This also means that if we need to do a lot of calculations to get there, we're still joining with the meeting. That's what we're saying when some say it's not 100% correct. We do confirm that it's 34% eligible and 31% aligned. So for the taxonomy in 2022. But to answer your question, there's not many companies that have described what they would be in 2050. And we were proud enough to do it. And in the Sustainability and Climate document, we gave our orientation where we would get to. And this is a transformed model, deeply transformed. And because half of our productions will be renewables, taken from renewables, hydrocarbon production will be used in line also with the net zero trajectory. And in order to implement this transformation is only one way. It is to take part of the cash flow from a carbon hydros and use them for renewables. Of course, therefore, we will transform the company. But if we do this today, it's because we are determined. We know that energy is something that takes a long time and that we need to start right away, take position in order to be able to grow these new activities. We just published, Jean-Pierre mentioned it for the first time, the results that we call integrity power that show on the first semester, we have about $400 billion of about -- so therefore, 10% and this -- to launch this strategy 5 years ago, I think it's quite remarkable to be able to have a sector that on this year, we'll be also expecting result of $1.5 billion. And given our activities in retail and distribution of petrol across the world. So this action is concrete. It's clear. It's real. And when a company like ours and with the report that you will be voting on describes what it will imagine being in 2050, I think this is a form of commitment. There is here a pathway, a pathway going across various points. And again, where we are asking you to judge us as well. Do you think we will -- would we -- will we reach this goal in 2050? Well, we believe that given our capacity in renewables, last year, we went to 17 gigawatts. We're now at 18. And last year, we grew our capacity from on 6 gigawatts during the year. And this is what we need to reach our ambitions by 2030. So all these are concrete results. And I hope that shareholders in Europe will listen to us. Otherwise, things will be happening. What's happening today. Our shareholdings will go on the other side of the Atlantic. The institutional shareholders have reached 46% of the capital of TotalEnergies this semester, and they were at 35% about 3, 4 years ago. And I really hope because we are a complete that is very close to Europe, very attached to Europe. We have our headquarters here in France, our shareholders in Europe and France maintain that trust. And I hope they do not get tangled in something that's the opposite of what the company -- the society needs today in 2022, the European government supported EUR 500 billion for fossil energy because the population of our developed countries couldn't support the high energy prices. This is the reality of today. And as I said earlier, if we produce less, prices will rise, maybe this is in the interest of TotalEnergies, but I also observed in 2022. Biden, the President of the U.S. has accused producers are not producing enough. So I think we all need to face the fact that this transition -- this energy transition is a difficult side. It is very complex to go from one energy system today that's at 80% of fossil energy to as fast as possible going over to a system that is completely decarbonized. This is the reality of the world. This is very complex, and we are committed with our means. I know that we consider our other major in oil, but at our level, I think our real ambition because it is the future of the energy the strategy, if we have proposed it, implemented it with the Board of Directors is because we want TotalEnergies to remain to survive. And in the face of a market of hydrocarbons that is lagging behind. We need to find in renewable energy, maybe points of growth where we can continue to bring dividends to our shareholders. And this, as always, energy takes time, but it is what we are committed to. I will answer to number four.

[ Philippe Chene ], Individual French shareholder. Good morning, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, currently, we do not -- we hear in all of the general assemblies, all companies. We only hear about energy transition and timeline that is more or less short to reach it. I think it is -- there is a fundamental issue. We talk about green energies and everybody thinks to electricity -- but for electricity, green electricity is not produced all the time. As you have said, you need gas alongside it. And in my opinion, there's a huge problem in terms of storage and in the use for transportation, namely since we use batteries that during production generate pollution, a huge pollution that no one mentions in South America. And I believe, personally, that in the medium term or short term in 2040, 2050, the only solution in the future for transportation for long distances and for heavyweight -- for trucks would be with hydrogen. I think that I know that Total is investing in hydrogen slightly, but maybe should it invest more massively. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you for your question. Hydrogen is a molecule -- an interesting molecule, we need to be able to produce it. There's very little natural hydrogen or white hydrogen as we call it. It is full of impurities, which makes its production cost very high and hydrogen, in fact, to produce it, it's either through natural gas and new store carbon or with water electrolysis, but you need electricity. So when we talk about hydrogen, in fact, we talk about electricity. When we talk about green hydrogen. This is the one we are -- if we had a strategy, we would turn to at least for TotalEnergies. We need to produce electricity. And you're right, the standards and challenges for this transition is that roughly, we need to multiply by 2 our ability to produce on the global level. But here, it's 20% of -- now it's 20% of the end consumption for the worse. So we should move to 40%. This electricity, as you also said, has a flaw. It cannot be stored very easily. Electrons do not like to be stored. So it's an energy that is not stored is a challenge in production and also economically, that is higher than others. So this is why we consider that all we do in terms of our efforts in renewable energies will enable us to be an actor in electricity to produce. Well, to have a decrease in the cost of hydrogen, you need a decrease in the cost of electricity. The second specificity, as you said, for hydrogen to be able to produce at a low cost, we need electrolysis to produce constantly. This supposes to be able to produce a decarbonated electric power that is available at all times, you need renewable energies, you need batteries, you need to nuclear energy as well. But all of these are complex systems. So I understand your point of view. And today, a second comment when you talked about transportation, you need to bear and bind that to produce hydrogen, well, a lightweight vehicle with electric vehicle is less performing energetically than a simple electric vehicle. It's a ratio for 1:4. So this is why today, electric vehicles, well, there's with batteries are imposed because they have an energy efficiency that is much higher in what we have decided on -- at the level of TotalEnergies is, first of all, yes, we want to look at hydrogen. We have already started to do so because we ourselves are a great customer in hydrogen. Our refinery consumes about 80,000 tonnes per year. And we are ready to launch a call for tender on the global level to see if we can obtain other suppliers and ourselves on a competitive level for green hydrogen for these important volumes we need. This will enable us to commit to green hydrogen. We also have our own projects for green hydrogen in the La Mède refinery. The other thing we announced recently in hydrogen association with Air Liquide, a great actor in hydrogen to be able to build a network in Europe of 100 service stations for trucks that could by 2030, turn towards hydrogen. There's a debate or a question about whether these trucks will be electrified, will have batteries. We talk about 1 megawatt charging stations to charge trucks that could travel kilometers for less than 30 minutes. So let's not be wrong because of the efforts that are made in the field of light electric vehicles and massive investments we are carrying out in batteries. Through ACC, the progress made in the field of batteries are extremely impressive and quick. So I really understood your call for our interest to look into hydrogen. I want to say we are putting all our efforts to be an actor in electricity, to be competitive. This is an entry point, of course, an order in the future to be able to produce hydrogen and to address this market if the demand rose as some forecasted.

I will now take number one. [ Dominique Showa ], [ Prospect ]. You talked about hydrogen. We talk about it extensively as it being a vector for transition, but we talk about hydrogen with electrolysis and all of the issues you mentioned, we could wonder whether there will be enough electricity to do so, but there is another type of green hydrogen, which comes from thermolysis of biomass and you have a negative carbon. There's a small company in France that is looking into it, financed by Eren. And my question is to know if through the -- to your affiliate, Total Eren to you are involved in these reflections on working on these topics with a prospective vision in order to have a negative carbon hydrogen, which has a dual game and dual advantage. And the Eren group subsidizes or finances. It's a shareholder of a wonderful startup that develops a project for micro nuclear thermal reactors which could be installed directly in the plants in order to produce heat that is decarbonated. It's very complicated to have decarbonated heat because traditionally, we have it through coal and gas or fuel and eventually through biomass, but we're not going to burn biomass to create heat. In this case, we have a production of heat with high temperatures for the industry. The promise of this microreactor is in 2026, my question also through the Eren Groupe, are you involved around these reflections for the future?

My answer is Eren is not total energy. It's a group that is owned by Pâris Mouratoglou, who is a visionary in the world of energy. He's at the origins of EDS new energies and then he left it. He created Eren. We have become shareholders, but he created Eren that was an energy producer for renewables, solar, wind, we are shareholders today -- well, we became shareholders 5 years ago in the framework of our agreement, we are also going to become 100% shareholders in the buyback of their company, but this is for renewable energies. Pâris Mouratoglou, who is a friend, by the way, and I say hello to him. He's continuing to invest this capital in other projects, among which the SNR project, but total energies are not involved in this specific project. It's independent. His group is going to pursue. We have decided to continue collaborated with Eren through a common affiliate on hydrogen, by the way. We haven't yet spoken of hydrogen and thermolysis of biomass, but I noted your idea. And these are 2 -- so there's Pâris Mouratoglou, who is an entrepreneur. He is very involved in energies. I consider that he has a vision then up to us to know what we want to do together once again. I already talked about the nuclear aspect, heat is not really a field we are involved in, and we do not want to move into it, but as you know, we do not want to add more competencies or skills that we not have to our energy portfolio. So what I suggest is I make a note, of course, of the hydrolysis and negative carbon that you mentioned. I'm going to take question #3 perhaps. I'm trying to go back and forth.

Christian [indiscernible] individual shareholder. I had a question on talents. What are the actions in place to attract and retain your talents in the scientific fields, especially for engineers and for women.

Very well. So talents, I'd like to say, I know that it's -- people say it's hard to attract talent. But when we implement, we put in place an offer. We have 170 positions people for 1 position. Secondly, in the scientific engineers recently. As you know, we opened an initiative we created an entity presided by Namita Shah called OneTech in order to have our engineers look into not only one of the energy businesses, explore production or refining or renewable energies, but being able to open up and offer their skills to all of these energies produced and to be able to train to electricity and other aspects. We also launched this year what we called a graduate program in order to attract 100 young talents to take part in OneTech, a 3-year program in order to help them discover all of our energies and competencies. We had 60 candidates from engineer, scientists for the 100 positions. So you see 6,000 candidates. So the first point, TotalEnergies is attractive. It attracts talent. So we were not lacking talent. This is not an issue. It doesn't mean, by the way, I do understand it. I read papers. And as you do and social networks give more importance to what is said than 60 candidates for a position I mentioned. Maybe we should start doing that as well. But [indiscernible] has tried, she had published something on LinkedIn with Namita Shah. And we also must hear as in the company, and I said we need to respect the values to listen to young people who say that this is not going fast enough. Some of them probably want to contribute to the energy transition by joining us because we are offering to young people an important ability to be involved in projects and others decided to turn their backs to us. But I respect each and everyone's point of view. Concerning young ladies, it is a topic, an important ones for science, science and women. We know today we, ourselves, have ambitions to feminize our executives, and we -- it is a question for TotalEnergies, who recruits after graduation from universities, young women and in France, reform of the [indiscernible], I don't know it very well. It didn't incentivize to go in the right direction. They're turning their back namely to hard sciences, not biology, but more turning their back to hard sciences which is a pool of talent for us. We are making efforts, their initiatives that have been launched by human resources. And I don't remember the name, maybe Namita can help me in order to invite, to convince young women to be involved in the scientific careers and technical careers in order to broaden the pool of talents we can have. Please note that for our company, there is a true effort to promote. And I believe in diversity that can express itself around the table at different levels. Our objective for 2025 is for women to represent 30% of the positions in management at the heart of the company. So this is what I can answer to you. And I don't remember the name of the initiatives. It's something that we got involved in order to be more diversified. So maybe Namita, you could talk, say a word about it. It's called stem, women for stem. So we committed to get involved to contribute to this development of the -- of women in these scientific studies in France. And I'm going to take #7 now.

I'm [ Tarek Busch ]. I work for [indiscernible], an Association of Shareholders that have co-deposited Resolution A. The science is clear to limit climate change and limit to 1.5 degrees as the Paris government stipulate. We need to divide by 2, our emissions by 2030. Our company is one of the biggest emitters in the world. If we look at the report of the carbon climate project, and there is -- and we need changes to reduce the emissions by 2030. The Board of Directors is determined to continue with their business model focused on hydrocarbons as long as possible. On the ISS vote and the recommendation in favor of Resolution A on climate, I will translate the climate plan for the company is not rigorous enough, in particular on the global goal on Scope 3 for 2030 and the pursuit of the petrol and oil projects. If TotalEnergies had a goal in line with the Paris agreements, the Board of Directors wouldn't encourage its shareholders to vote against Resolution A, but has only asked for the scope 3 to be in line with the Paris agreement by 2030. Therefore, I will not make you waste your time by talking with the Board of Directors, and I will talk to you. Dear shareholders, your advice is to remain with the hydrocarbons because this -- they believe that this is what the shareholders want. The question is coming.

So your advice, I'm going to help you dear shareholders. Shareholders have deposited their resolution. It's inscribed and I think we should ask him to express himself. I would have liked to be -- have this on the agenda, this would have given you more time to express yourself. But I think we should listen to you to hear what you've got to say.

Thank you I do apologize. I went through the Investor Relations. They asked me to express myself. But I do not propose any poly mix here, just give us your point. So you can make this choice by voting for the Resolution A, asking for a reduction of emissions Scope 3 by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate today when the votes of this general assembly will be shown will be -- we'll know how many shareholders are worried about the future of the economy, and we will support TotalEnergies to continue the harm that they're doing. Because in the end, it is in the interest of the company and its shareholders to seize opportunities that are provided by energy transitions. It would allow also to stop risk of losing access to the capital markets, to talents, linked to political interventions, litigations and responsibles of climate change innovation of rupture, exposition to lost assets. As long as the shareholders will allow the companies to destroy the climate and not be in line with the climate change agreement. This means that we need to continue investing into hydrocarbons beyond what the climate agreement stipulates and by stopping investing in alternative measures. We need to find clarity. We need to. Just a few more minutes. I will ask a question to the President because the only decision to be made is to dissociate short-term profits to long-term risks.

We are waiting for the question. Please ask your question.

President, TotalEnergies can be in line with the Paris Agreement without reducing absolutely anything in a wider scale of the scope 3 emissions by 2030.

We have read your resolution. And I think I have answered, the Board has answered Scope 3, I'm going to give a simple example that I've mentioned in my speech with planes. The air industry for 20 years has been about 2% efficiency in terms of efficiency on claims per year. And therefore, with technology, innovation managers to consume and use less kerosene. However, Scope 1 of air companies because this is what we're talking about, has increased. Why? Because the demand of air transportation has increased. There's more people on the planet, if you want to fly. So how do you want TotalEnergies to decide whether the policy of trade of air companies is the right one. Our job is to supply energy, and we're committed to it, to invest also in sustainable air transportation that more expensive, of course, as well. And this is also why all this needs to be organized. It's taking some time. But when we do supply the fuels that are 3, 4x more expensive than current kerosene, clients will also have to contribute. So the only way, the only option is not in the interest of the shareholders. TotalEnergies would be to stop the assets that will be taken over by other companies. And therefore, without having a positive impact on the environment because this is Scope 3. Scope 3 means that you want to make us responsible of the demand of air transportation that is making companies live, but we are not responsible for it. So we disagree on that point very deeply. Our real goal and this was the question from a shareholder earlier. The question is, if we really can evolve along the years on our energy mix. And this is a key indicator for us. This is -- this is carbon intensity indicator of the energy product that we provide to our clients. We went from 12% in 2015 to 2022. We have for emission to go up to 25% in 2030, and we will look at this indicator. As we have also presented it in the sustainability climate report, we reached a trajectory of reduction of 25%. That is in line with a -- an APS of 1.7 degrees scenario. So these are the points on the debate. You also mentioned the support of ISS. I also want to make sure that all shareholders in the room that the same agency -- the same voting and election agency because [indiscernible] group has also supplied the same resolution to the 5 shareholders of major -- of the oil majors and the Exxon as well as Chevron. The ISS agency has said to vote against the resolution for all other providers, except us, although we are the most committed. And there is a point that makes me think, well, we cannot call for one oil company or for 2 -- maybe 2 oil companies to deepen the goal on scope 3 because they don't have one. So maybe the reflection is here, and maybe we should have had one in the first place. So I think in this situation, either we look at the glass as being half empty or half full, the energy transition, again, we're doing it with society. We're not doing it against society and our clients. We will -- we want to convince them to go towards this energy transition little by little. If again, TotalEnergies puts across on the production by 2030 as you propose it because you say we should divide by 2 our hydrocarbon production. So -- if we do this, if we divide it by 2, our production, if this is the only goal to reach the goal, then if you explain us how to do this, I'm ready to listen to you. If we don't do this, somebody else will be producing the oil and gas because the company -- the society needs it, so this is at the heart of the debate. And what I hope for a I think this is also what we've done, and I'd like to highlight the opening of the Board of Director and the dialogue between shareholders and the reaction that you've given was the subject of legal debate, and we have decided that it was preferable for all given the intensity of the debate submitted to voting rather than as we did last year in a different nature not submitted to vote. So we are open to it. I think this dialogue needs to continue as we have had the opportunity to meet you during the year. I think I've met you twice during this year. So we're going to continue doing so. What is important? On one part is to be able to listen. This doesn't mean simply looking at the -- this is a bit of a difficulty that we confronted with radical positions that mean that we can't listen anymore to each other. And I think the path that we have worked so far since 2015 is quite impressive. I didn't expect, although when I became CEO in 2015, I didn't think I'd give you the investment plans that I've given you today. This is a deep evolution. And I think that what will be interesting to look at in the votes today is also to look at the percentage of shareholders and support the resolution of the Board of Directors. We were 89% last year, and this is a very high level. And in my eyes, this is also much more important than the score that will be the one of your resolution. So number 8, I believe.

Hello, Mr. President, Mr. Chair. I am delighted to have heard you at several occasions this year on the BSM business, where you were -- your speech was of great quality. Taking into account what you presented to us today, you said you would come back more often on BFM business to speak. Since you also, I believe, sensitive to the advice that is provided to you, I would give you another, which is maybe to answer to journalists that are on BFM TV, for the greater number. Maybe you could have an important impact there. So I would like to mention that I was in positions in the past in the banking sector -- in management and in the banking sector. When we offer loans, of course, to our clients, we offer rates and conditions because we have contracts or upstream that enable us to be protected or covered. So with all the people in energy, not only Total, I have noticed that they made proposals or suggestions to small and medium-size companies that were -- they were delirious with numbers that could reach 50, 60x what they paid in the past. My feeling is that the people in energy do not have the same means that bankers do for their proposals or their offers. But do you confirm my feeling, my impression. Do you now have tools that are perhaps maybe more performing that maybe are over the statistics, and you can make better offers to our clients. Thank you for your answer.

So first of all, a comment -- the problem is that there are a lot of media in France. And the CEO of TotalEnergies is very solicited, but he also must take care of his company, its development. We dedicate a lot of time to it. And I entrust the communication direction who would love to use my time to make me take part in all of these shows and tries to go from one media to the next. But this week, I gave 2 interviews that are going to be broadcast on the same day. But I have noted that it's not BFM business, but it's for the wide audience. And maybe we need to take a look at that. In any case, I believe that BFM's Director must be very happy of your intervention. We'll see. Second question, I agree with you what happened in 2022 is an anomaly. And I'd like to say that we discovered, well, in electricity markets, in power markets, there was an absolute freight with crazy prices that's quite rocketed and the difficulty we have at TotalEnergies, I'd like to mention it, it justifies our strategy. For the moment, we have more clients than production. So when you have more clients than production and what you have to do is to buy energy on markets. This is why we absolutely want. And when I say the strategy needs to be embedded or integrated is to increase our abilities to produce in renewables to be able to supply our clients and master our costs because when we can master our production costs, we are able, of course, to adapt our offer which hasn't been the case in 2022 since we were to buy a big part of our electricity on the market. Of course, we made offers that were -- of prices that were way too high. I admit it. And the consequences in January and February, a lot of small and medium-sized companies, bakers, caters, people who own restaurants said it was impossible. And you have seen that in January, TotalEnergies was the first one each time, even ahead of consultation meetings organized by the state, I don't know if we need a software, but just common sense. And for my teams in charge, it wasn't easy because last year, we were unlucky. The person or the client who renewed his or her contract in the beginning and midway through the year, the first quarter, there were very high prices. There were discussions internally to say whether we should add a new offer or not. At the time, the government invited operators to add new offers. But when we added an offer for the coming year in September 2022 and we looked at prices -- purchasing prices in a year, they were extremely high. The policy, we decided to adopt to be moderate, and I say this goes through losses. We assumed our losses, but we assume them, namely because at some time, and I consider in social responsibility to sharing the value and we must indeed understand that we must not lose our clients. There is a level of acceptability of the energy price that we mustn't go over. And these increases were extremely high. I'd like to remind you that for restaurant owners that they were able to amortize a part of the over cost because we supported them of EUR 100 per megawatt or about EUR 2,500 for EUR 15,000 invoices. I totally agree, but I make a note of your suggestion. And I would like -- I will ask our banker friends if they have advice for pricing, but electricity is a good -- well, I only have one lesson to keep from this. We have to adapt our production capacity, to adapt our cost and reduce our losses because prices can be very volatile. So I will now take #1, who is waiting, who has been waiting for a long time, and then I'll take #6. 1, 6.

Hello, Mr. President. [indiscernible] shareholders from [indiscernible]. Yes, my question comes after what was just said previously. Several years ago, you had told me, and it was also my opinion that for electricity storage, it was more -- I think it was more profitable than batteries. But I understood that there was a former project that was abandoned in the Black Lake in the [indiscernible], and it was put back on the table by public authorities. Even if it's very small, 55 megawatts, if I remember correctly, for your image, even if you were just a sleeping partner maybe with a junior partner, maybe it would be very good, and it would be beneficial for public opinion and for -- at a little cost.

We don't need to be green, but it's not only a sleeping partner. This is part of the chain for storage and electricity, when I say we want to be a full after we need to store. And these are -- there are force dams that brings in water. It's -- so we have teams today who are looking for these types of projects. I have one in [indiscernible]. Well, I'm going to look at [indiscernible]. Well, it will be a challenge for Michel and his team, we will be -- we'll have to prove to all our citizens that we are fully committed. Please note, and I know that everybody is convinced it's extremely efficient. We need to find the right sites, of course, and we have obtained the authorization.

A small question perhaps concerning your management of the strikes -- the great strikes. Well, the installation and for retirement to simplify things, we have a feeling that in the French refineries from -- seen from the outside, of course, the rate of automation is very low and that there aren't mirror sites to manage them. So I wonder who hires people on site. I know it's forbidden to ask this, the political opinion of employees. But in a hiring interview, we avoid hiring people from the CGT or other unions.