French oil major TotalEnergies will not resume Middle East production until shipping transit through the Strait of Hormuz has stabilised, its CEO said on Wednesday.
About 15 per cent of Total's upstream oil and gas production is offline because it is unable to ship cargoes through the Strait of Hormuz as the Iran war continues, though resulting higher oil prices and increased output in other regions have offset the company's Middle East losses.
"We will wait for a real stabilisation in the Strait of Hormuz before restarting operations," CEO Patrick Pouyanne told analysts after the company reported bumper first-quarter profit, adding that it takes two to three months to restart production.
"Nobody knows how long this war will last...and in all the scenarios I read, at least $80 per barrel is expected for 2026," Pouyanne added, referring to the outlook for average oil prices.
Pouyanne also said that Mozambique could become "the Qatar of Africa" and that he hoped to speed construction of its liquefied natural gas project in the African country to come online in 2029.
(Reporting by America Hernandez in Paris Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Goodman)