French oil major TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), opens new tab did not pay corporate tax in France last year because its operations in the country generated a loss of about 300 million euros ($356.07 million), CEO Patrick Pouyanne said on Friday. Pouyanne was asked in an interview how Total, which on Wednesday reported 2025 adjusted net income of $15.6 billion, escaped France's corporate surtax on large companies — a measure that was supposed to be temporary but has been rolled over into the 2026 budget as France struggles with high debt. Get a daily digest of breaking business news straight to your inbox with the Reuters Business newsletter. Sign up here. Advertisement · Scroll to continue
"It so happens that in France our refining activities suffered enormously in the first six months of the year ... and this activity was loss-making, with a fiscal deficit of 300 million (euros)," Pouyanne told TV station TF1's Ecorama show. "Globally our tax rate is 40%, which is higher than the French rates, so I'm not one to be given lessons ... and we were the largest contributor to the French tax on share buybacks, with around 180 million (euros)," he added. The CEO warned that taxing large companies to balance France's budget would lead to an investment pullback. A linear graph showing the margins for refining crude oil into fuels in Europe for French oil major TotalEnergies, from 2020 to 2025. A linear graph showing the margins for refining crude oil into fuels in Europe for French oil major TotalEnergies, from 2020 to 2025. REFINING EARNINGS HALVE OVER A DECADE Total's refining and chemicals division was a rare bright spot in its 2025 results, earning about $2.4 billion — a 10% increase compared to 2024, in a year marked by low oil and gas prices. Advertisement · Scroll to continue
But that was still half what the segment earned a decade ago, as new refineries in Asia and Africa have opened and created competition for refineries in Europe. Total holds stakes in six refineries in Europe out of 14 refineries worldwide. Three are in France. Margins on refining fuels in Europe spiked in 2022 after the loss of Russian energy due to sanctions over the war in Ukraine, and again improved in the second half of last year as the U.S. sanctioned Russia's Rosneft and Lukoil — but the long-term trend continues, with major firms shuttering petrochemical sites in Europe. TotalEnergies will close one steam cracker in Antwerp in 2027 due to an expected oversupply of ethylene. Pouyanne has said there were too many refineries in Europe, but that he preferred converting sites to produce renewable fuels rather than closing them.
