TotalEnergies announced on Wednesday its intention to continue its share buybacks, maintaining them in 2025 at a level of two billion dollars per quarter, while the group has revised upwards its growth prospects in hydrocarbons.

The oil and gas company, which also has a strong presence in renewable energies, added at an investor day held in New York that it planned to increase its dividend by at least 5% next year in view of its $8 billion share buybacks in 2024.

Returns to shareholders should thus exceed 45% of cash flow (cash flow from operations or CFFO) in 2024, compared with 46% in 2023.

Thanks to the launch of six major projects this year - in Brazil, Suriname, Angola, Oman and Nigeria - TotalEnergies now expects production growth of around 3% a year in hydrocarbons by 2030, mainly in liquefied natural gas (LNG), instead of the previous 2% to 3% a year over the period 2023-2028.

The Group specified that this growth would exceed 3% in 2025 and 2026, thanks to the start-up of several high-margin projects (Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Iraq, Uganda, Argentina, Malaysia, Qatar).

It also emphasized that it had "de-risked" the exposure of its LNG sales portfolio to spot prices in 2024 by signing long-term contracts, mainly indexed to Brent, while strengthening its upstream gas integration in the USA through two acquisitions of low-cost assets.

TotalEnergies has also confirmed that its electricity production will exceed 100 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030, 70% of which will be from renewable energies, representing almost 20% of its energy production by that date.

The group continues to target net investments of between $16 billion and $18 billion a year over the period 2025-2030, of which around $5 billion will be devoted to "low-carbon energies", while stressing that it has the option of reducing them by $2 billion "in the event of a sharp drop in prices".

"Thanks to this clear and disciplined investment policy" and anticipated free cash flow growth of $10 billion by 2030, its board confirmed its policy of returning over 40% of cash flow to shareholders "across cycles".

On the Paris Bourse, TotalEnergies shares were up by nearly 3% at 13:20 GMT against a backdrop of soaring crude oil prices linked to tensions in the Middle East.

(Benjamin Mallet and America Hernandez report; edited by Blandine Hénault)