For your company. As the capacity of the auditorium is limited, some of you will be attending this meeting via a duplex link from an adjoining room where you will be able to watch the presentations, take part in the debates, ask questions, and vote. We drew lessons from last year, and the welcome was much easier at the bottom of the tower. Everybody was able to come in at 2:00 P.M. sharp, and there is a broadcast between the two rooms that is totally smooth. Thus, you will see behind me on the screen the two rooms alternatively. I also would like to welcome the many shareholders who are following the General Meeting live via our website, totalenergies.com. They are not able to take part in the vote directly, but they were able to vote in advance by post or by Internet using the VOTE ACCESt platform.
We would like to thank them for this. I would also like to point out that there are judicial officers and journalists present at the meeting. I would therefore like to extend a warm welcome to all shareholders and interested parties attending this meeting wherever they may be. I declare the session open. We shall now proceed to the formation of the Bureau of the Assembly. The FCPE TotalEnergies Actionariat France, represented by Mr. Adrien Delapierre, and Amundi, represented by Mr. Patrick Fiorani, have agreed to act as scrutineers for this meeting. According to the attendance register, these two shareholders have the highest number of votes of all the shareholders present in the room. I would like to thank them and declare the Bureau elected. I propose that you appoint your Chief Financial Officer, Jean-Pierre Sbraire, who is with me, as Secretary to the meeting.
According to the provisional attendance sheet drawn up by the meeting's register, the 33,704 shareholders present, or having cast a postal vote, represented 1,540,952 shares with voting rights. As this number of shares exceeds the quorum required to deliberate validly as an ordinary and Extraordinary General Meeting, I declare the General Meeting duly constituted. The documents certifying that the General Meeting has been duly convened are required to be held, have been deposited with the officers of the meeting. They were made available to shareholders prior to this meeting and sent to those who requested them in accordance with regulations.
I would remind you that the General Meeting is being convened to consider the items on the agenda set out on page 4 of the Notice of Meeting, the reports submitted to the General Meeting, or included in the Notice of Meeting brochure and in the documentation made available to you. I therefore propose that I do not read them out. There are many of them, and the Secretary would have a great work to provide. We are now going to present the various subjects or topics we wish to discuss with you. Jean-Pierre Sbraire, your Chief Financial Officer, will present the financial results for 2024 and the start of 2025. These results testify to the relevance of the strategic choices made by our Board of Directors and our integrated multi-energy model. We will come back on this later.
Your Statutory Auditors will then give you a pre-recorded presentation of the various reports drawn up for this General Meeting. Next, Jacques Aschenbroich, your Senior Director, will report on the balance governance of your company. He will report on the main work of the Board of Directors and its four committees. He will present the renewals of term of office and appointments submitted for your approval. He will present the role of the Senior Director and report on his duties in 2024. Marc Cutifani, Chairman of the Compensation Committee, will then present the compensation package for your Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and the Directors of your company. During a recorded video, you will have—it's a video with a translation that you will see.
Your Strategy and Sustainability Director, Aurélien Hamelle, will present the Sustainability and Climate 2025 Report, which gives an account of the progress made in implementing the company's ambition in terms of sustainable development and the energy transition towards carbon neutrality, as well as its targets in this area for 2030. This presentation forms part of the item that your Board of Directors has decided to include on the agenda for the Annual General Meeting for the first time. I will then continue with an update on the implementation of the company's strategy and its outlooks. We will take a Q&A session in two parts. The first part, 20 minutes, while we will prioritize questions on climate with all of the items on the agenda, and then a second part when we will take whatever questions come in relative to the company.
I will now give the floor to your Financial Director. Before doing so, as often, as you always, in the afternoon, meetings at TotalEnergies start with a sustainability part. Let's look at the video.
In order to produce for the problem, the La Porte plan requires a lot of electricity to power its many machines and engines. Reducing greenhouse emissions in order to achieve the company's Green initiatives requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from electricity consumption.
The GroenGreen Project allows us to green 100% of our purchased electricity for the U.S. sites. It is a fully integrated project. We needed three parties to make it work. First, TotalEnergies Renewables, who invested in the assets and produced the energy. Second, TotalEnergies Gas and Power, who sell the green electricity to the sites. Third, the sites who purchase the electricity and use it. The GroenGreen project allows us to reduce our Scope 2 CO2 emission by 600,000 tons of CO2 per year, which is equivalent to 130,000 cars driven during a full year, or the electricity used by 116,000 homes per year. We are especially proud of the GroenGreen Project because it represents the TotalEnergies company's values, pioneer spirit, and stand together.
[Foreign language] Jean-Pierre, the floor is yours.
Ladies and gentlemen, hello, good afternoon. After two exceptional years in 2022 and 2023, the environment for 2024 has remained generally favorable for the company. The price of the Brent is the reference for the oil market. It has remained, on average, above $80 per barrel. The average was $81 per barrel in 2024. The gas prices, although lower than in 2023, have remained at high levels. The average price of gas in Europe was $11 per million BTUs on average for 2024. 2024 had less volatility than the previous years in the markets, especially during its first three quarters. That said, the downstream environment was depressed overall, marked by a sharp fall in refining margins, especially in Europe, where the refining margin was around $40 per ton over the year. That is 45% less year- on- year.
In this environment, TotalEnergies has taken advantage of its integrated multi-energy strategy to once again generate solid results, which I will have the pleasure of presenting to you this afternoon. As you know, we have a balanced strategy based on two pillars. The first pillar is oil and gas, mainly LNG, and the second pillar is electricity with integrated power. Let's take a moment to look back at the highlights and achievements of 2023, which show the significant progress made in implementing the strategy. Pillar Number One: Oil and Gas. We have started in 2024 production on five major oil and gas projects, and we have taken the investment decisions on four other projects: Grand Morgu in Suriname, two additional offshore projects in Brazil, and one project in Angola, Caminho.
We have continued to make progress in Namibia, particularly the studies, which should lead us to take the Decision to Invest in initial oil development. In LNG, we've continued to reduce our portfolio exposure to spot gas prices by successfully pursuing the long-term marketing of the company's LNG resources, mainly in Asia and through Brent- indexed pricing formulas. Moreover, the company's portfolio was enriched in 2024 with the launch of Marsa LNG in Oman. This will be one of the LNG plants that emits the least CO2 in the world. We have acquired additional interest in gas licenses in the U.S. and the Eagle Ford Basin in Texas, increasing our upstream integration in the United States. We have acquired a company called SapuraOMV in Malaysia, benefiting from exposure to international LNG prices.
This year's achievements have allowed us to announce a growth of our production that is value-generating of 3% a year for the period 2025-2030. Because of these achievements, we were able in 2024 to post a proven reserves replacement rate of 157%, which is one of the highest in the company's history, testifying to the richness and depth of our upstream portfolio. I will come back to this later. The second pillar is Integrated Power and Electricity. We have remained very active in 2024 in this sector. We have continued to build a portfolio that will enable us to provide our customers with low-carbon electricity available 24/7, which is what we call Clean Firm Power. On our target markets, we have continued to implement a strategy with the acquisition of flexible gas-fired power generation capacity in Texas and in the U.K.
We have constructed an integrated business along the electricity value chain in Germany through the targeted acquisition. The major highlight of 2024 for Integrated Power's cash flow was reaching the ambitious target of having a target of higher than $2.6 billion, reaching 2.6. Let's move to the figures. As I was saying as an introduction, TotalEnergies delivered in 2024 very solid results. The cash flow from operations is close to $30 billion at $29.9 billion. The adjusted net income is at $18.3 billion, and the IFRS net income at $15.8 billion. TotalEnergies continues to be first among the majors with the profitability of the equity and the ROACE at 14.8%. On the left-hand side of the slide, you can see how this cash flow of $29.9 billion was generated, and you can see that all of the sectors have contributed to this performance.
E&P for $17 billion, boosted by the startup of the oil projects that I mentioned earlier. $4.9 billion were generated by integrated LNG in spite of a decrease in the prices of LNG and with markets that were less volatile for the first three quarters of 2024, which affected the results of the gas trading activities. As I said earlier, $2.6 billion for Integrated Power with a positive contribution of all of the segments of the value chain of Integrated Power and the Downstream, in spite of depressed margins overall that I described, and in spite of operational difficulties in some of our refineries, mainly in France and the United States, we have delivered $6.1 billion in 2024, demonstrating the strength and the resilience of our integrated model. In the right-hand side, the yellow part shows how this cash was used in 2024.
$17.8 billion were allocated to investments to prepare the future, and I'll come back to this later, and $15.7 billion to the shareholders in the form of dividend for $7.7 billion, with dividends again on the rise, and $8 billion, so $2 billion per quarter, dedicated to share buyback. It is important to underscore that these amounts made it possible to maintain the return- to- the shareholder ratio at a very high level. We were at 50% in 2024 compared to 46% in 2023. It is important to emphasize that these investments and this return to shareholder was made while maintaining a very solid balance sheet. The gearing ratio at the end of 2024 was 8.3%. If we exclude the exceptional items at the end of the year, we remain under 10% at 9.5%. In April of 2025, we have published the first quarter results of 2025.
They are positive results following the fourth quarter of 2024 in a more uncertain environment. You can see the main figures here. The hydrocarbon production with a growth that is nearly 4% year- on- year at 3.9%, benefiting from the ramp-up of projects starting in 2024. Electricity generation rose by almost 20% year- on- year at 11.3 terawatt per hour, and it benefited from the growth of generation from renewable sources, but also the acquisition of flexible gas-fired capacity mentioned earlier. If we combine hydrocarbons and electricity overall, the company saw its energy production grow by almost 5% over the first quarter of 2025. It is a performance that clearly sets us apart from our peers. The LNG sales amounted to a little bit more than 10 million tons in line with the figures of the previous years.
The gross installed renewable electricity capacity continued to grow by almost 20% compared to the previous year. Looking at our CO2 emissions, you can see the figure of the first quarter 2025, 8.4 million tons on average for the first quarter. This continues to decrease our CO2 emission on our operated assets, what we call Scope 1 and 2, and it is the efforts of E&P to reduce flaring, but also the projects to reduce emissions in chemical and refining. Looking at our cost, the company confirms its leadership in cost control with operating cost per barrel. We remain below $5 per barrel at 4.9. Looking at our investments overall for the quarter, you can see the figure. We've spent $4.5 billion, which shows for the first quarter of 2025 a timing effect on acquisition and disbursement, which is not linear throughout the year.
The overall objective for the year is to invest between $17 billion and $17.5 billion, of which $4.5 billion are dedicated to low-carbon energies, mainly in electricity. Lastly, in a price environment that is broadly equivalent to that of the fourth quarter of 2024, we have generated a cash flow for the first quarter of 2025 of $7 billion. Let us now look at investments. We had announced in February 2024 a forecast range for our investment between $17 billion and $18 billion. You can see we're wrapping up the year 2025 at $17.8 billion, demonstrating our discipline in this area. The pie chart shows the breakdown of these investments in 2024 by activity, reflecting the implementation of the strategy that I've just described. A third of these investments were allocated to new oil and gas projects, contributing to the objective of production growth by 2030.
$4.8 billion were spent in low-carbon energies, mainly in the sector of Integrated Power, which alone represents $4 billion. Finally, slightly more than a third was spent to maintain our oil and gas activities. You know that this figure of $17.8 billion covers organic investments, i.e., the investments that we do on our existing portfolio, but also the net between acquisitions and disposals. Overall, the net amount of these acquisitions and disbursements was around $1 billion, and this figure actually conceals a very strong activity of the company in terms of portfolio management, because this figure of $1 billion covers the net with more than $4 billion of acquisitions and more than $3 billion in asset disposals.
In these $4 billion, we have these acquisitions of SapuraOMV in Malaysia, several gas-fired power plants in the U.S. and the U.K., and some acquisitions contributing to the Germany electricity value chain. For the $3 billion, we've got an implementation of the Integrated Power Capital Reallocation Strategy via the disposal of shareholdings in renewable portfolio in Texas with 2 gigawatts, and in the U.K., in offshore wind energy with newly acquired CCGT. To illustrate the competitive advantages of the company vis-à-vis its peers, we have on this slide four indicators. The first indicator on the top left is the Life of Proven Reserves. This is a key indicator for the upstream segment. It expresses the number of years during which we will be able to continue producing hydrocarbons at the 2024 rate only using the proven reserves, so the reserves that have a high degree of certainty.
As we've already mentioned, the company has maintained a consistent strategy, never giving up on hydrocarbons, and it is now reaping the rewards. Unlike the majority of the other measures, the company's lifespan has increased this year. We were at 11.7 in 2023. We are beyond the 12 years in 2024 at 12.4, and we are now on par with Exxon, which objectively demonstrates the quality and the richness of our portfolio. Second indicator, the upstream production cost. For the past 10 years, we have one of the lowest upstream production costs in the industry. We want to maintain this competitive advantage that allows us to demonstrate resilience in the event of a price downturn for crude oil.
Looking at the profitability of the capital employed, the ROACE, in 2024, we maintain our number one ranking in terms of our ROACE, continuing to demonstrate that we continue to be the most profitable major while being a leader in the energy transition. Lastly, final indicator, the dividend per share growth. TotalEnergies ranks second on this indicator with a growth of 25% over five years. This reflects in particular the fact that in the 2020s during COVID, we had decided to not reduce the dividend and to maintain it unlike our European peers. As I've just illustrated, TotalEnergies has competitive advantages over its peers and a differentiated growth model. This enables TotalEnergies to deliver to its shareholders a particularly attractive return. You know that the dividend is a key element of our policy of return to shareholders.
The board has suggested a dividend for 2024 of EUR 3.22 per share, representing EUR 0.85 per share, which is an increase of 7.6%. With this dividend in respect of 2024 and the first interim dividend in respect of 2025 at EUR 0.85, you will receive in 2025 EUR 3.28 per share. This represents an increase of more than 20% of the dividend paid over the last three years. We are going to continue our share buybacks in the first quarter of 2025 for a total of EUR 2 billion. This mechanically increases the net earnings per action, and it structurally increases the cash flow, and it is the driver for future increase of dividend per share. To sum up, in 2024, TotalEnergies has once again demonstrated the relevance of its multi-energy strategy, the resilience of its integrated model, and the quality of its global portfolio.
This will enable us to navigate with confidence with the more environment of 2025 that will be more uncertain. Thank you very much. I think you were to announce the statutory auditor, so I'm going to do it now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, good morning. On behalf of the Board of Statutory Auditors, Ernst & Young Audit and PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, I would like to report to you on our audit of the financial statements for the year ended December 31st, 2024. These reports issued for the 2024 financial year are among the documents made available to you and are reproduced on the screen. These documents include the reports on the annual and consolidated financial statements for the year, the special report on regulated agreements, the Sustainability and Taxonomy Certification Report, and finally, the reports on potential proposed capital transactions.
What I suggest in accordance with the custom of this meeting is I propose to present to you the key points in our reports of the annual and consolidated financial statement. Firstly, regarding our reports on the annual and consolidated report for the year, our audit approach and our due diligence have taken into account the specificities of your company's business. It should be noted that our work is intended in accordance with our professional standards to provide reasonable assurance that these accounts do not contain any material misstatements. Pursuant to Resolution 1 relating to our report on your company's annual financial statement prepared in accordance with French accounting principles and presented on page 618 to 621 of the Universal Registration Document, we have certified these accounts without reservation.
In our report, we have outlined the key audit points relating to the valuation of equity, investments, and related receivables, as well as the work performed in this regard. We have also made no observations on the management report and the Board of Directors' Report on Corporate Governance. Pursuant to Resolution 2 of our report on the consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS as adopted in the European Union, which is presented to you on pages 450-454 of the Universal Registration Document, we have certified these financial statements without reservations. Our audit approach took into account the specific features of your company's business in terms of activity, organization, accounting policies, and internal control systems. The Audit Committee and the Board of Directors were regularly informed of the progress and results of our work.
We presented the following three key audit points in our report relating to the impact of climate change and the energy transition on the financial statements, the assessment of the impairment of non-current assets of exploration and production activities in the Exploration and Production and Integrated LNG segments, and the impact of the estimate of proven developed hydrocarbon reserves on the depreciation of producing oil and gas assets in the same Exploration and Production and Integrated LNG. Under the 5th Resolution, our special report on regulated agreements is presented to you on page 273 of the Universal Registration document. It specifies the absence of new regulated agreements authorized and submitted for your approval. Furthermore, the agreement for the provision of premises free of charge to the Alliance for Education, United Way Association, which had already been approved in previous years, has been extended into fiscal year 2024.
Our fourth report covers sustainability and taxonomy information. It is presented to you on pages 416 to 419 of the Universal Registration Document. Our limited assurance report covers compliance with the ESRS and European regulations on three aspects. The process implemented by your company to determine the information published, information when it comes to sustainability included in the sustainability statement, and Taxonomy information. Based on the procedures we performed, we did not identify any significant errors, omissions, or inconsistencies regarding compliance with the ESRS and European regulations. Part two of our report on sustainability information includes a technical observation related to the first-time application of the CSRD as presented in sections 5111 and 5112 of the sustainability report. Finally, and in connection with Resolutions 14 to 15 of your meeting, we issued reports on capital transactions.
We did not comment on the principal terms and information provided in the Board of Directors' report. Finally, when using these various authorizations, we may be required to prepare additional reports if necessary to enable the finalization of these capital transactions carried out by your Board of Directors. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, a summary of our various reports for the 2024 financial year. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much for the work provided all year- round and around the world. I will now give the floor to Jacques Aschenbroich, your Senior Director, who will talk about the balanced management of your company.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. I'm delighted to be able to speak today as Senior Director of TotalEnergies, a role I've held on the Board of Directors for almost two years now.
In this capacity, I'm pleased to present to you the governance of your company, the composition of the Board, its activities, as well as a description of the actions that I've carried out as Senior Director. In 2024, your Board of Directors and its four specialized committees were, as in the previous years, well mobilized to support TotalEnergies in the deployment of its multi-energy integrated strategy. Your Board of Directors met 10 times, and the committees held 18 working sessions with a very high attendance rate among directors. I would like to emphasize that this particularly high attendance rate amongst your directors underscores the very strong level of involvement in monitoring the company's work. Your directors are all present, as Patrick has said, among you today. They are mobilized, as always, during the key moments in the life of your company.
As every year, we have also held a meeting of directors who do not hold executive or salaried positions, which I chaired as Senior Director. During this meeting, we discussed the work and the functioning of your Board of Directors. On this occasion, the directors confirmed once again their full support with no reservations to the transition strategy adopted by the Board of Directors, making TotalEnergies the company most committed to the energy transition amongst the major. The directors have also expressed their satisfaction with the communication efforts undertaken by the company to improve the perception and understanding of this transition strategy by the various stakeholders. Finally, the directors have confirmed their unanimous support for the conversion of U.S. ADRs already listed on the New York Stock Exchange for 30 years into ordinary shares.
If technically confirmed, this would in fact be a technical operation to transform financial instruments, which would have no impact on the company's head office or its listing in Paris, since the Paris Stock Exchange would remain the market for the introduction of TotalEnergies shares. I now come to the composition of your Board. TotalEnergies can count on a Board of Directors with a wealth of complementary profiles and expertise, thanks to the diversity of its 14 directors. At the end of this meeting, and subject, of course, to your approval of the approved resolutions, your Board will be composed of six women and eight men, including six international members. This broad diversity of nationalities and cultures is quite remarkable and allows TotalEnergies to strengthen the match between the composition of the Board and the geographical exposure of the company's activities.
The Board of Directors, on the recommendation of the Governance and Ethics Committee, invites you to renew your trust in Lise Croteau. I want to underscore that renewing the mandate of Lise Croteau would allow the Board to continue to benefit from her knowledge of the electricity and renewable energy sector, as well as her expertise in the financial sector. In view of the good governance practice of the company's Board of Directors, according to which a director should not reach the age of 75 during his or her term of office, Mrs. Maria van der Hoeven and Mr. Jean Lemierre did not seek renewal for their term of office. The Board of Directors would like to warmly thank Maria van der Hoeven for her exceptional contribution to its work for almost 10 years, particularly in her capacity as Chair of the Audit Committee since 2021.
The Board of Directors also wishes to express its special thanks to Mr. Jean Lemierre, who throughout his term of office has shared with the Board his extensive experience in the financial world, both in France and internationally, as well as in the governance of major French companies. His advice has been invaluable to the work of the Board and its committees. In doing so, the Board of Directors has decided to propose to the General Meeting the appointment of two new independent directors, Mrs. Hélène Liébert and Mr. Laurent Mignon, to replace Mrs. Maria van der Hoeven and Mr. Jean Lemierre. They will introduce themselves respectively in a video that will be broadcast in a few minutes. Finally, I would like to commend the work of Mrs. Éva De Jong, whose term as a director representing employee shareholders expires at the end of this meeting.
You will therefore be asked to vote on the appointment of a new director to replace her. Among the two candidates, the Board of Directors has decided to approve the candidacy of Mrs. Valérie Della Puppa , nominated as candidate by the employee shareholding fund, FCPE TotalEnergies Actionariat France, which is the employee shareholding fund representing the largest number of shareholders. Mrs. Valérie Della Puppa has already served on the Board of Directors from 2019 to 2022, and she will be immediately able to fully contribute to the work of the Board. Let us now turn to the highlights of your Board's actions since last General Meeting. First of all, the Board has once again this year devoted a significant part of its work to the transition strategy of the company and its associated business models.
During the year, the Council has had to decide on the company's major projects. I would like to mention in particular the approval of the offshore oil project Apatou to Sepia 2 in Brazil, the approval of the Grand Morgu oil project in Suriname, the first offshore development project in that country, and finally, the acquisition of the VSB Group, a leading German developer in the renewable energy market. During its strategic seminar, the directors have conducted an assessment of the company's strategic environment, studying in particular the evolution of the energy markets and a benchmark of the company's strategy. In 2024, your directors were able to visit in groups, accompanied by a member of the Executive Committee, the company's sites in Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and France. There, they met with employees, partners, and local figures from the energy sector.
I'm thinking, for example, of the visit of the Tilenga project site in Uganda or the Satorp refinery in Saudi Arabia. These visits contribute in a very concrete way to the training of the directors. This year, new visits are being organized in Nigeria, Scotland, and France. Now, I would like to briefly recall my duties as Senior Director. As you know, your Board of Directors pays particular attention to the balance of powers within the company. As Senior Director, my role is to ensure the proper functioning of governance within your Board. In this capacity, I chair the Governance and Ethics Committee, as well as at least one annual meeting of all of the company's external directors, as I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation. I also lead the process of evaluating the functioning of the Board of Directors.
Furthermore, I would like to remind you that the Senior Director is the preferred contact for directors for the prevention of conflicts of interest and may request at any time the convening of the Board, as often as the interests of the company require. Finally, I participate in relation with the company's shareholders, particularly on corporate governance issues. This will be the last point of my speech. This year, again, I've had several discussions with shareholders representing more than 20% of the equity. I've also worked with the voting, the rating agencies in conjunction with the Board Secretary and the investor relation teams. This allowed me to answer the questions and gather their expectations. I remain for major team of interest for the shareholders. The first concern, the Board itself, its composition, its functioning, and its evaluation.
In this context, I explained once again the reasons that led the Board of Directors to reaffirm the relevance of a unified governance in order to pursue the transition strategy of the company, as well as the Board's position regarding the consultative shareholder resolutions. I was able to recall the possibility for shareholders to submit points without a vote to initiate debate on a particular subject at the General Meeting. Climate and sustainability were, of course, the subject of lively discussions in a context of major regulatory developments, notably with the establishment of the CSRD at the European level and in the face of controversies surrounding the practice of say-on-climate via consultative resolutions. The Board of Directors commissioned an inventory of the practices of our peers, developments in the market, as well as a consultation of shareholders and voting advisory agencies to gather their expectations regarding say-on-climate.
Following this rigorous review, the Board of Directors has decided to include on the agenda of this General Meeting a formal item for debate, without a resolution submitted to your vote relating to the Sustainability and Climate 2025 Report, reporting on the progress made in implementing the company's ambition in terms of sustainable development and energy transition towards carbon neutrality and its objectives in this field by 2030. I would like to inform you that the Board of Directors intends to continue this practice at future General Meetings and that in the event of a significant change in the company's strategy, the Board of Directors would take the initiative to submit the Sustainability and Climate Strategy to a consultative vote of shareholders. The shareholders we met also wanted to hear my perspective as Senior Director on the company's strategy and its investments.
In this regard, we discussed those that have generated some controversy, such as projects in Uganda and Mozambique. In conclusion, I can testify that your directors are present, active, and very involved in the work of the Board of Directors and its committees, in which they participate with exceptional regularity and commitment. The complementarity of our professional experiences and skills are all assets for the quality of the Board's deliberations and for the good governance of your company. Also, rest assured that your directors remain resolutely mobilized to support the company in its transition strategy over the coming years within the framework of a balanced and effective governance. Thank you for your attention.
[Foreign language] My name is Hélène Liébert I'm an Operating Partner for the Equity Fund. For more than 25 years, I've been supporting transformation for French companies and international companies as a leader or consultant. I am currently a Member of the Board of Directors of companies listed and private companies held significantly by French families, namely Bureau Veritas, Galeries Lafayette, and Philo. I also had the honor and privilege to be a Board Member for Neoen SA and Évrydien Nessa, the Lead Director, President of the Audit Committee and Remuneration Committee. The two companies also play a part in the field of energy. My experience in finance and strategic transformation and operational transformation are advantages that I wish to put at your service as a Board Member for TotalEnergies. Finally, with my Korean origins and an international career and a dual nationality, American and French, I hope I will provide a strategic vision that is multicultural and multi-geographical.
If you choose me today as a Board Member to join the Board of TotalEnergies, I would be extremely proud and honored, and I commit to mobilize time and necessary attention in order to provide my best contribution. I thank you all very sincerely for listening.
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, hello. My name is Laurent Mignon, and I am the President of the Directoire Wendel since December 2022. Before joining Wendel, I was President of the Directoire BPCE, one of the leading investment firms. Wendel is an investment group that invests alongside industrial and service companies with a long-term vision, such as Bureau Veritas, that we have been a shareholder for more than 25 years. If you choose me as Board member to join TotalEnergies' Board of Directors, I will provide my experience in several fields.
First, my experience as a company leader, the head of international groups in services and financial services, so it says Natixis or AGF. On the other hand, as a banker and with a number of clients in energy as well, I was often confronted with great challenges of companies from a macroeconomic standpoint or a microeconomic one, namely financing projects. I will provide the Board of Directors my experience as a Board member. In the framework of my different positions at Wendel, I'm the president of the Board of Bureau Veritas. I am today also a Board Member of LVMH, and until last year, for 16 years, I was a Board Member at Arkema, a company that TotalEnergies knows very well.
Finally, I could share my experience with energy transition and the environment, fighting against climate change, topics that I have worked on extensively at Natixis and BPCE, and as a President of the Climate Committee mission for the French Bank Federation until two years ago. If you choose me as a Board Member to join the Board of your company, I will be proud and happy to contribute to the work of the Board of Directors of a company that is a major one for our citizens, for our economy, and the future generations. I thank you very much for your attention.
Hi my name is Valérie Della Puppa . I have been an employee for 35 years for TotalEnergies company. I have done several jobs for the maintenance of service stations and purchasing, and I was also an employee representative in local and European bodies.
I'm also a member of the Supervisory Board of TotalEnergies Actionariat France, which is the most significant in terms of the capital held by the employees. My application is supported by this fund and by the Board, and I'm very honored. I was also part of the Board of TotalEnergies from 2019 to 2022, and I can very quickly contribute to the work of the Board. I'm aware of the importance of this function in defining the strategy of the company, specifically in this transitional period. I'm convinced that my knowledge of the field of our company and of our stakeholders, amongst which the employees who are shareholders, will be useful for the work of the Board. My objective is to invest myself fully in the work of the Board and its committees. Thank you for your trust.
Hello, fellow shareholders. My name is Hazel Clinton, and I ask for your support in becoming the next Director to Represent Employee Shareholders. My career has taken me across diverse industries, company structures, and various locations around the world, with the last 19 years spent as an employee of TotalEnergies, with responsibility for your employee share schemes, remuneration, and benefits across the U.K. I am a firm believer in the collective power of the shareholder to shape and influence the direction of a company. As a shareholder, I have a personal commitment to ensure that our company delivers on their promise for a two-pillar strategy on oil and gas and Integrated Power, while also aiming net zero by 2050. Together, we can do this safely while protecting and maximizing our investments.
My commitment to you, the shareholder, is to understand the challenges that our board face, ask those difficult questions, and push for transparency where possible. I ask you to make your vote count and choose me as your Director Representing Employee Shareholders. Thank you for your time.
Thank you to Jacques Aschenbroich. I t's physical, his voice was leaving him, but thank you to speak on during this sequence on governance, and this really shows the commitment of Jacques to hold his post as Senior Director. I want to thank Éva De Jong , who is going to leave us, and she's represented the employee shareholders. They are the most important of the room, representing 8% of the capital.
One word for the two Board members who are going to leave us, who had a very strong influence on the company and on its CEO, Maria, who was able to nudge the transition along constantly, not just in audit, but her knowledge of the world of energy and her opening were very useful in all of our debates. Jean Lemierre, who was for me always a precious source of wise advice, somewhere you have really marked the history of our Board and will miss you even if I know that Hélène, Laurent, and Valérie will be able to replace you. Thank you to all three of you. Moving now to the sequence that Mark Cutifani is going to present. Mark is the Chair of the Remuneration Committee, and he is going to talk about the remuneration of the corporate officers and of the CEO.
It is recorded, but Mark is on the front row, and he's going to make sure that it is as he recorded it.
Good day to all shareholders. My name is Mark Cutifani, and I have the honor of chairing the Compensation Committee, working alongside Jacques Aschenbroich, Lead Independent Director, Dierk Paskert, Independent Director, and Angel Puéjot as the employee representative. Today, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I'm very pleased to present a summary of the company's 2024 compensation policies, the 2025 compensation policy for your Board, and the 2025 compensation policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
As I wrote to all shareholders in a letter published in our Universal Registration Document, the Compensation Committee met twice since the last Annual General Meeting to review market developments and the company's performance to ensure that current practices remain sufficiently competitive and are based on a clear alignment between compensation and performance. Regarding the compensation for your directors, two resolutions are submitted for your approval. Resolution number 10 concerns the approval of information relating to the 2024 compensation for directors. This amount is calculated for the group on the basis of actual attendance for each Board or Committee member at each scheduled Board or Committee meeting. The maximum annual compensation package for directors as a collective was set by the Shareholders' Meeting last year at EUR 1,950,000.
Given the number of Board Committee meetings held during fiscal year 2024, the amount of compensation determined based on meetings and attendance was actually EUR 1,983,000. That is an amount above the cap set by the Shareholders' Meeting in 2023. This amount was therefore subject to a prorata in application of the decision of the Board of Directors on February 9th, 2012, such that the amount paid to the directors is at most equal to the amount of EUR 1,950,000 authorized by the Shareholders' Meeting. Resolution number 11 submits for your approval the 2025 compensation policy for the directors. The maximum annual global envelope last revised in 2023 to bring it to EUR 1,950,000. The Board indicated that this cap could be reviewed every two to three years, depending on inflation.
Considering all of the above elements, the Board of Directors decided to propose to the Shareholders' Meeting to revise the amount of annual maximum envelope of the directors' compensation by virtue of their directorships to bring it from EUR 1,950,000 to EUR 2,150,000. Such an amount could then be reviewed every two to three years, depending on inflation and other relevant matters. If the recommended envelope is adopted by the shareholders, the Board will increase the variable remuneration linked to the effective presence of a Board member to either a Board or committee meeting. All fixed elements would remain unchanged. I will now present the 2024 compensation for your Chairman, CEO, which is composed of fixed compensation, variable compensation, and performance shares. In 2024, the fixed compensation component amounted to EUR 1,550,000 as voted during the last shareholders' meeting. The variable compensation, conditional on resolution number 12, amounted to EUR 2,698,550.
That is 174.1% of the annual fixed compensation. This performance level was calculated out of a maximum possible 180% award after strict compliance to the results of the economic parameters and the evaluation of the CEO's personal contribution. Finally, as approved previously by the Shareholders' Meeting, 140,000 performance shares have also been granted to the CEO, subject to performance conditions. The final allocation of these shares will then only take place in 2027 based on the rate of achievement of performance conditions. Now, coming to the 2025 compensation policy for the Chairman, CEO, which is set out in Resolution number 13 submitted for your approval.
In connection with the renewal of the Chairman, CEO's term of office at the Annual General Meeting of the 24th of May, 2024, and the setting of the Chairman, CEO's compensation policy, the Board announced that the annual base salary and the structure and the amount of the annual variable proportion applicable during the previous term of office would be maintained unchanged for the duration of the new term of office. That is 2024 to 2026. The fixed compensation of the Chairman, CEO for 2025 will therefore be EUR 1,550,000 unchanged since the beginning of 2022. The annual variable portion for 2025 therefore retains the same structure and the same amount up to 180% of the base salary as for 2024. Upon the recommendation of the Compensation Committee, the Board has increased some performance criteria, such as the ROE objective, 13% increasing to 15%.
The safety objectives have been changed as well, as well as the Scope 1 and 2 objective for the year 2025. Finally, the allocation of 140,000 performance shares for 2025 is in line with the Chairman and CEO's compensation policy set by the Board of Directors for the entire duration of the new term of office. That is 2024 to 2026. On behalf of the Compensation Committee, I would like to thank you for your feedback and the support and for your time and attention.
Thank you very much, Mark, for this very clear presentation. We can give you a big round of applause. I will now hand over to a new part of this General Meeting since the Board decided to look to add a topic when it comes to sustainable development. We thought it was important to have a presentation to illustrate this aspect. This is why we have Aurélien Hamelle, Director of Strategy and Sustainability, Board Member, who will present the major part of this sustainability climate report that is available. Thank you very much.
Hello, dear shareholders. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. We are evolving on a market for energy systems where demand for three energies we produce and sell is increasing: oil, gas, and electricity. Our strategy as a producer and energy distributor is to answer to this demand because it is essential for human means. In January, this is what we prepared. Too many people do not have access to energy around our strategy.
It relies on two pillars: electricity, oil and gas, and Integrated Power on the other that Jean-Pierre presented to you to answer to the demand in energy that exists and building the decarbonated systems in the framework of the contribution to the energy transition. There is no better indicator of our contribution to these energy systems than showing how we contribute to have the demand evolve, offer and demand, so supply and demand. Without which we wouldn't have any effective transition. The indicator that we see here on this first slide is the evolution of the energy sales of TotalEnergies. As you can see, in 2015, we were selling a majority of oil, a little more than one third of gas, and almost no electricity or power.
In 2024, last year, TotalEnergies sold about as much oil and gas for a little more than 90% of the energy sales and has sold 11% of low- carbon electricity. We had to do so to design this company, that Oil and Gas Company that you have known, to change it and to sell more electricity in its energy mix. We have an ambition, as you can see, in 2030 to have a mix of sales where we would sell about 30% of oil and gas products, oil products, 70% of gas, and 50% of low- carbon electricity. This is what I will come back to in a few moments. As Patrick Pouyanné said, last March, we had the opportunity to present in detail our Sustainability and Climate Report.
I will come back to the details in a moment when it comes to the energy transition and climate. Also, other elements that are linked to sustainable development and all its aspects and elements due to and linked to the environment. By looking at the report, you will see our contributions to biodiversity. You will see the deployment of the action plans in our sites for the environment. You will see how we are planning to reduce by 25% our use of water to reduce hydric stress. You will see how our teams are committed in working on this strategy and really adopting it. You will also see how we deployed around the world to the benefit of our employees a program Care to protect health and protecting people and parental leave as well.
Finally, you see how we contribute to the communities, the well-being of our communities linked to our project through initiatives on clean cooking to give access to clean cooking means that are more respectful of health, the climate, and better development in India and Africa. Finally, you'll see how we create local employment linked to our projects and how we also contribute to the societal aspects to our country. Welcome our projects. I will come back in more details now to aspects to how we reduce emissions with the company. Here is a summary of the progress achieved since 2015 until 2024 and the targets that are ours for this year in 2025 until 2030. First, we have unchanged targets as those you have already heard of. The objectives for 2030 have been increased. You can see why.
Because we were more performant, we had better performances than what was planned, taking into account all the efforts put together for Scope 1 and 2 connected to our operations and our industrial sites. We moved from 26.046 million tons of CO2 emissions to 34 million tons in 2024. Our aim was to be below 38 million tons in 2025. It was reduced to minus 37 and unchanged for 2030. I'll come back to this later. We focused on methane, and I'll come back to this later. Methane, you can see that compared to 2020, the operated emissions were reduced by 55%. We beat our target a year ahead of time because we wanted to have this in 2025, but we also reduced it minus 60% of methane emission in our operations for 2025. Now the objective for 2030 is minus 80% in the ambition to reach almost 0%.
Finally, I'd like to come back to the contribution that is ours in energy systems. There's no better solution for emissions than our carbon intensity of energy products sold, the energy mix that we sell to our clients. We can show you this indicator to measure the CO2 contents in the life cycle, production, transformation, transportation, and sales and uses of the products we sell to our clients. You see this carbon intensity of the energy we sell has decreased by 16.5% between 2015 and 2024. We have also reached our objective ahead of time, minus 17% in 2025 for carbon intensity. What we show here is the details of the actions led to reduce our scope one and two emissions, the operated emissions between 2025 and 2030. Part of the path has already been traveled, and we still have to go.
What you can see here is by developing the branch of Integrated Power, we have added to our assets a gas plant, CCGTs, that emit CO2. This is in blue here, the CCGTs, but it contributes to our mix of energy power to decarbonate what we sell to our clients. There is a portfolio also. We are privileging projects that are low cost and low emissions. This is the red part that you see. We can help decrease CO2 emissions in our operations. Finally, all of the green shows the efforts led on the field by our teams in our industrial sites, in our affiliates to reduce emissions. First, in terms of energy efficiency, we have deployed between 2023 and 2025 a plan for energy efficiency, $1 million to save 2 billion tons of CO2 per year, namely through strong actions in export and production and refining.
We also reduced our emissions and are continuing to do so by reducing burning and methane emissions. I'd like to remind that our aim is to no longer recourse to burning, the routine burning, and we are reducing our processes. We are using low- carbon emissions, as you saw the film in the beginning of this meeting. Finally, we are going to progressively replace gray hydrogen with low- carbon hydrogen. We have launched a call for tender, 5,000 tons by 2030 for our European refineries and our report shows the progress made in this area. Finally, we are building a portfolio of carbon credit that relies on Nature-Based Solutions, NBS.
These will be used in 2030, and then we will use them, about 5 million tons of these carbon credits, which will help us reach the targets that you can see here to reduce our emissions by 40% between 2015 and 2030. This will also enable us to have an average intensity in production phase of 17 kilo equivalent for pet oil and gas that positions us well below the average in the industry. This threshold is used as an investment criteria for each new project that must be below this threshold to show the virtuousness of our activities. I want to talk about methane and the actions that we lead. It's an action that is key because emissions, anthropic, so human emissions in methane come from agriculture and also waste. Concerning ourselves, we are pioneers because this is very heating emissions, more than 30% of CO2, for example.
It is key for us to reduce methane emissions. We need to identify the sources of emissions. What you see here, we have identified the sources: flaring, of course, venting, and fugitive combustion as well. Once these have been identified, you can lead actions to reduce the methane emissions. We have significantly reduced these emissions between 2020 and 2024, minus 55%, with actions that are vigorous when it comes to flaring in Gabon. Namely, we stopped routine flaring, eliminated in 2024. We also led operations in the United States for venting, Barnett, where we switched gas instruments to air for nanometers. This was replaced by compressed air. This helped us to reduce 3 kilotons of CH4.
We also have very precise granular actions led, and we decided to take an initiative, a pioneer one, in 2025, and this will be closed at the end of 2025, to have the equipment for continuous CH4 detection deployed by end 2025 for all our gas and oil plants to reduce methane emissions and to manage them and reduce them, which will help to address the fugitive emissions as well. We also wanted to insist on the relevance of our strategy when it comes to LNG. This is strategic for us because it's a growing market. It is seen as increasing by 60%, 50% today until 2030 by moving from. This is a market that helps us reduce the carbon intensity of energy systems because gas, when generated, emits 50% less than coal. In maritime transportation, it's minus 26% of emissions compared to fuel gas.
We want to reduce all of these emissions in the entire liquefied chain. We reduce the liquefaction phase. Jean-Pierre presented, talk about Marsa LNG, a project that will be a major one, fully electrified, that will be supplied in solar energy and will decrease the CO2 emissions per barrel equivalent produced minus 3 kilos, so 10 times less than the majority of the industry. We also ship, and our carriers will use LNG as well because it's less emitting in CO2 emissions. We also work with the maritime industry to reduce fugitive emissions in our ships. Finally, because our aim is to sell to our clients and to make our products accessible, we have LNG as marine fuel and three ships that are used, one under construction for this market, for the bunkering.
I will conclude with this slide that I'd like to sum up with what to show what must increase and what must be reduced. You see that the energy production as reminding is increasing, and we plan for this increase to be pursued, + 4% in average per year until 2030. The dividends have increased. Our Financial Director has presented this to you previously, and the emissions are decreasing, as you have seen. Scope 1 and 2 emissions of our operations are decreasing, methane emissions are decreasing, and the intensity of our carbon intensity of our products is also decreasing as well. I'd like to mention our debt ratio that is decreasing as well. As an energy company, we do what we say, and we are delivering more energy, less emissions, and more return to our shareholders. Thank you very much for your attention.
Aurélien has simplified my job because he said everything, and this slide summarizes what I'm going to myself share with you. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, once again, good afternoon. It is with great pleasure that I see you today at the headquarters of TotalEnergies, which is hosting this major event that is the General Meeting of our shareholders. I would like to thank all of our shareholders who are present, about 700 between the two rooms, to directly participate in our General Meeting. I hope that you will enjoy this moment of direct dialogue during the Q&A. We hope, and I think it was the case, that the access conditions to the Coupole Tower were smoother this year than last year.
We will continue to take advantage of your observations to improve your welcome and the quality of this General Meeting and to make sure that each participant enjoys it in a similar way. I also want to say that I want to recognize all of those who are following us live this year as well. We have given the opportunity to share your expectations and questions ahead of this assembly by setting up a platform on our website from May 2nd to 16th. Some of you could ask questions or share your comments. While giving priority to questions in both rooms here in La Défense, your Secretary to the Assembly, Jean-Pierre Sbraire, will be able to relay certain questions on the platform to which we will happily respond. I would like to say that every person that filed a question will receive an answer from the Investor Relations.
I also want to acknowledge the 1.8 million non-employee individual shareholders that we were able to count in Europe and the United States. They increased significantly by 220 new shareholders over the last year, maybe because we count them better, and they now represent 15.3% of TotalEnergies' capital. Employee shareholding is also experiencing strong momentum because TotalEnergies confirmed its position as the number one employee shareholding company in Europe in 2025, with more than 8% of the capital. It was awarded the award of the French Federation of Employee Shareholding for the same year. Together with the employees, it is more than 20% of the company's capital held by individuals. This is quite remarkable because we know that this guarantees stability for a company, and our ambition is to continue developing individual shareholding to reach, if possible, 30%.
2024 was a very special year for TotalEnergies because we celebrated our centennial. This major achievement in the company's history is obviously not an end in itself, but it does remind us that TotalEnergies has been patiently built since 1924 and that this long history has forged common values that have united and driven our teams to guide our daily actions to meet the challenges that lie ahead. You know these values: safety, respect for others, a taste for performance, the strength of solidarity, and the pioneering spirit. These are the values that have enabled TotalEnergies to successfully grow throughout its history, and they are the values that enable us today to meet the new challenges that your company must face.
As Jean-Pierre Sbraire presented and Aurélien Hamelle reminded you, 2024 was also a year of success and progress in the implementation of the strategy of the company, and I think we can be proud of this. 2025 is dominated by the word uncertainties, given the new policies and trade policies and geopolitical policies that the new American administration wants to implement. I think the word sovereignty is going to make a strong comeback in the world with its economic sovereignty, energy sovereignty, defense sovereignty. We need to take this into account. Despite this more uncertain and more volatile environment on the oil markets, I would like to reaffirm here today the relevance and consistency of our multi-energy balance transition strategy to which we have been resolutely committed since 2020. Once again, I would like to focus on this point. Dear Shareholders at TotalEnergies, we have two deep long-term convictions.
The first one is that electricity will be the energy of this 21st century because it is the energy that will effectively enable us to reduce our carbon footprint and our greenhouse gas emissions, but also to meet the need for comfort, such as the AC for the Global South. The second is that until we have built a decarbonized global energy system that is available, reliable, and affordable, we must continue to invest in traditional energies, oil and gas, to provide our customers the energy that they need every day to live and to thrive. If oil was the major energy source of the 20th century, gas and carbon-free electricity will be at the heart of the energy system of the 21st century. This is why, in keeping with this vision, our strategy is anchored on two pillars.
On the one hand, hydrocarbons, and particularly natural gas, while preserving our positions in oil. On the other hand, electricity, which is the energy at the heart of the energy transition. Concerning this first pillar of oil and gas, we need to see that even if their growth and the growth for their demand is now no longer in line with the trade growth, the demand for this continues to increase given the growth of the world population and the legitimate aspirations of the countries of the Global South for a better standard of living. The global demand for liquid hydrocarbons has increased from 100 million barrels per day in 2022, 102 in 2023, 103 in 2024, and it will continue to grow in 2025, albeit more slowly. TotalEnergies will continue to meet this demand because it's the energy of today.
We thus fully are in line with our ambition to increase our oil and gas production by more than 3% per year starting in 2025, as you saw in the first quarter. For oil, this materialized in 2024 with the start of production of new oil projects in Brazil, in the United States, as well as with the launch of major projects such as Grand Morgu in Suriname, Caminho in Angola, and Sepia 2 in Itapu 2 in Brazil. These projects allow us to combat the natural decline of fields, which I remind you is around 4%-5% per year in the oil industry. They are necessary to meet the demand of our customers, particularly in emerging countries.
The growth of our hydrocarbon production over the decade will come mainly from Liquefied Natural Gas, thanks to the development of a rich portfolio project in the United States, in Qatar, in Oman, in Malaysia, in Mozambique, and in Papua New Guinea. These projects will contribute to a 50% increase of our sales of LNG by the end of the decade, in line with the market, and they will consolidate our position as the third- largest LNG player in the world. As Aurélien Hamelle detailed previously, gas has two major assets in energy transition.
First of all, it is a flexible means of producing electricity, and I told you how important electricity was because it makes it possible to compensate for the intermittency of renewable energies, solar and wind, and it guarantees our customers a reliable energy supply 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even when there is no wind or sun. The second quality of gas is, although it is a fossil fuel, we recognize that it represents a good alternative for many countries to the use of coal to generate electricity, as gas-fired power plants emit on average half as much CO2 as those running on coal. We have thus estimated in the report that Aurélien presented that our LNG sales in 2024 helped avoid approximately 65 million tons of CO2 worldwide for customers of this Liquefied Natural Gas who substitute gas for coal.
Gas is the link between our two pillars because it contributes directly to the electricity in our strategy. I also want to add that gas is a great means to combat energy poverty that still affects more than 2 billion people worldwide. For instance, the use of traditional biomass for cooking, generally wood or charcoal, emits a lot of CO2 and contributes to deforestation. In Africa alone, the issue is nearly 1 billion tons of CO2 per year. Also, cooking with wood and charcoal causes fine particles, and this pollution causes many premature deaths because of respiratory disease. We have decided to act, and we have announced an investment program of $400 million in clean cooking solutions using LPG, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, a cooking method that produces much less emission, protecting the health of the user.
We are already deploying these solutions to 60 million people in Africa and India, and we aim to reach more than 100 million people by 2030. Dear Shareholders, as you can see, your company continues to respond resolutely to the energy needs of its customers by promoting solutions with less carbon. Each of the projects we develop, as Aurélien Hamelle expects, meets strict investment and emission criteria to make our company even more resilient, thus more profitable and more environmentally sustainable. Some of these projects, such as in Mozambique and Uganda, are the subject of harsh criticism from some of our detractors who want to eliminate the fossil fuels and make us live today when we still have not built the alternative decarbonized system on a global scale. This can be part of the controversies that we want to answer more transparently as possible.
These projects are along our values and principles. We are deeply convinced of the benefits for our host countries and the local population, as well as the need to act with respect for local institutions and the rule of law in each of the countries in which we operate. I want to say, and I'm convinced of this, that it's better for projects like those in Uganda to be developed by a company like TotalEnergies, with our values and principles, than by other actors that can be less concerned about human rights or environmental issues. This is one of the reasons why these states have chosen to work with TotalEnergies. We need to meet their trust. To successfully complete the energy transition and achieve carbon neutrality together with society, we must, of course, invest in the second pillar in low- carbon energy sources.
This is the objective we have set ourselves by developing a second pillar of our strategy that is predominantly focused on generating and selling electricity. Dear Shareholders, as I know you follow our sector and our company, you must have noted that some of our major competitors have decided to reduce their investments in transition. TotalEnergies is, however, staying the course with the support of its Board of Directors, as Jacques Aschenbroich has said, and continues to invest significantly to ensure that this second pillar, electricity, represents 20% of our energy sales and production by 2030. We have thus invested $4.8 billion in low- carbon energy in 2024, and we plan to maintain a level of $4 billion over the rest of the decade, about 90% in this business of energy power, of Integrated Power.
Our sales were almost absent at the beginning of the decade, as one of the drawings of Aurélien Hamelle showed. It represented 11% of our sales in 2024, and it will be around 10% of our hydrocarbon production this year. After five years of investment, our net electricity production should reach 50 terawatts per hour, and if we have the same track over the next five years, we will exceed 100 terawatts per hour, which is our objective, and 20% of our energies. This just gives you a size: 100 terawatts per hour is the equivalent to an oil production of 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. I can say that this is the proof that the energy transition at TotalEnergies is not just word; it is a reality.
Of course, this growth of our electricity business can only be sustainable, and the Board is looking at this, as Jacques Aschenbroich said, that if it is profitable. That was the case in 2024 because the Integrated Power segment generated $2.6 billion in cash flow. Of course, we invest more than $4 billion, but only four years after its launch, and it has a 10% return on average capital employed. Our ambition is to achieve a 12% return and a cash flow of around $4-5 billion by 2030, which is coherent with the roadmap, and we want the sector to contribute to the growth of your dividend. This is why we must remain disciplined in the choice of projects that we wish to develop in their execution for Integrated Power, as well as in Oil and Gas.
We also favor certain markets, and you saw in 2024 that we invested very broadly in Germany through various operations of acquisition in the U.K. as well, in France, in the United States, in India, and in Brazil. Just to mention a few of the most recently in Germany, we have acquired VSB, which is a major renewable energy developer in wind, as that of Kyuden Energy and Quadra for electricity trading. We have also, in 2024, acquired several gas-fired power plants in the United States and the U.K., and currently, with the emergence of the data centers, these assets are very profitable. You must have seen that at the end of March 2025, we will meet our objective of 28 gigawatts of gross capacity of renewables, and we are on track to get to 35 gigawatts at the end of 2025.
These acquisitions allow us to build a model whose strength and profitability lie in the integration of renewable assets, flexible assets, and storage assets to be able to offer our customers a decarbonized electricity that is low- carbon, available 24 hours a day, seven days out of seven. We are also benefiting from strong growth in demand for electricity for the famous data centers needed for the development of digital technology and artificial intelligence, and we want to contribute to this market. In this case, the transition, and I think it's important for all shareholders, the transition of our models to more electricity is not at the expense of profitability.
For the third consecutive year, TotalEnergies was in 2024 the most, well, the major that was the most profitable company among the five majors, with an average Return on Capital Employed close to 15%, thus demonstrating the financial solidity of our economic model. This performance is not the result of chance. It is the result of the transformation of our company since 2015, ambitious investments, and the efforts made by all the company's 100,000 employees, so 5,000 people. In 2024, during the global investigation survey we have every year, 90% of whom expressed their pride in working for TotalEnergies. I'd like to say that this is the result I'm the most proud of, and I would like to thank them today for it.
As Jean-Pierre Sbraire reminded you, with a low debt ratio, a break-even point before dividend at $25 per barrel, 12 years of proven reserves, and a replacement rate of 157% for these reserves in 2024, we are approaching the coming years with confidence and good visibility. I also emphasize that our production costs are less than $5 per barrel and are the lowest among our peers. Our low-cost production strategy, combined with discipline in our investments, will allow us to withstand when oil prices fall, as is currently the case, and thus ensure the resilience of our company and our portfolio depending on the evolution of demand, while also contributing directly to the resilience of your dividend. The size and geographic diversification of our portfolio are as many assets that allow us to remain agile in the current geopolitical context.
Our global presence allows us to thus navigate the various opportunities available to us and effectively redirect investments when necessary, as we have been able to do since 2022 and the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Dear Shareholders, our portfolio is not only growing, profitable, and resilient, but it is also adapted to the climate challenges we face. As you know, your company is resolutely committed to an ambitious, balanced transformation strategy that combines profitable growth and sustainable development. In a context where some, well, we're full of uncertainties, I reassert that all directors are committed in this transition that we have planned. We are holding, we are keeping these, we're staying the course, and we are looking at the long term. The danger would be to change our strategy depending on the problems at the moment.
Efforts accomplished by our teams in terms of emission reductions are bearing fruit and have even allowed us to strengthen our objectives. I will not go over the progress in terms of climate performance, which were just presented to you a few minutes ago, but I'd like to salute the commitment of all our teams to improve our environmental and social performance and bring it to the same level as our financial performance. This is the CSRD spirit. You will see, your Board suggested to discuss on this climate policy together during the debate that will begin after my intervention.
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, as I have just told you, TotalEnergies demonstrates every day that it is possible to be a growing, profitable company, even the most profitable, while contributing to the energy transition, reducing our emissions, investing in our energies of tomorrow, and sharing the value created in a fair and responsible manner with all our stakeholders, our employees, our customers, our host states, and you, dear Shareholders. I would like to talk about sharing our added value. In 2024, in all countries, we have created value everywhere we work, and this added value has represented an amount of $65 billion. We consider that it is our responsibility to share this added value with the states.
In all of the country where we have activities, where we make profit, we will pay in 2024, $22 billion in taxes, which represent an average rate of over 40%, a slight increase compared to 2023. In France, we have paid more than EUR 2 billion in 2024 taxes and duties, the employee social security contributions paid on the salaries of our 35,000 French employees, which is very significant. We obviously share our profits with our employees because they, TotalEnergies employees, are at the heart of your company's performance, and they are the ones who work every day to create this value. We are obviously committed to sharing our results with all our employees.
We have paid them $9.5 billion in salaries, and in France, our colleagues, the common social base employees, have benefited in 2025 of approximately EUR 10,000 per employee because of the results of financial year 2024. I think this is the highest level distributed in the country. As I have already had the opportunity to say here, your company is also very attached to the development of employee shareholding because it not only allows us to closely associate our employees with the economic performance of the company to strengthen their sense of belonging, but also to align their interests with yours, the shareholders of the company. This is why we have implemented for several years a proactive policy with the ambition of ultimately achieving a rate of 10% of the company owned by its employees.
This policy is based on a capital increase operations reserved for employees, which have been increasingly successful every year since 2015. We received the results from the last operation, and they have invested once again this year EUR 450 million in the company, whereas there are disruptions on the stock exchange, and these are EUR 100 million more in 2024, in 2021, 2022, 2023. This is the proof that our employees have a strong trust in their company and in time because these are blocked for five years. This employee shareholder company is based on the performance shares as well that is growing because in 2025, more than 13,000 employees received it compared to 12,000 in 2023.
This policy is bearing its fruit as by the end of 2024, more than 70% of the company's employees were TotalEnergies shareholders, and their stake in the company's capital now stands at nearly 8%, an increase of more than 50% over the last 10 years. I remind, as a shareholder, they benefit, as all of you do, from dividends, receiving more than EUR 550 million in dividends in 2024. This has been celebrated, and we will welcome here during the meeting in 2025 and 2026. Sorry. We are sharing this added value with our clients. We welcome people in our service stations. We supply gas and electricity to 9 million clients in Europe, essentially. As a responsible company, we are committed to acting for our customers, to showing solidarity with them in all circumstances, and to supporting them in order to facilitate their new modes of mobility, particularly electric ones.
In France, we have invested in more than 1,600 ultrafast charging points on motorways and expressways, and we are leaders in the sector. In 2024, we have continued to act for purchasing power by pursuing the commitment made at the beginning of 2023 to motorists with a cap for all fuels available at stations at EUR 1.99 per liter and even EUR 1.94 per liter for our individual electricity and gas customers in France. This threshold or ceiling is less useful today, but it may have another in the future. This commitment will pursue in 2025 and beyond. Finally, of course, the sharing of value concerns you, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders. This year again, I had the opportunity to meet with several dozens of you in France, elsewhere in Europe, and in the U.S.
Your Senior Director, the members of the Executive Committee, and the Investor Relations team have also maintained a rich and constructive dialogue with shareholders throughout the year, with no fewer than 1,200 meetings worldwide. This is bearing its fruits, and I can testify. So many improvements have been implemented through this dialogue, such as the abolition of, in the last years, the double voting rights, which was widely approved at the 2023 General Meeting. Or, as Jacques Aschenbroich said, we now have a Board with a greater diversity because, given its internationalization, with the directors present today, who are the best reflection of it. To further strengthen the quality of this dialogue, your company has adopted a shareholder engagement policy this year.
This program, which includes an annual survey, specific engagement campaigns, and dedicated time to reviewing the votes of the General Meeting, strengthens the regularity of our interactions with shareholders and informs the work of your Board throughout the year. This is why we decided to include on the agenda of this General Meeting a formal item for debate on the Sustainability and Climate Report. I know that some of you have come to this room to take part in the debate, in the discussion, and I know that what is very dear to you is the sustainability of the shareholder return policy and dividends. Let me reassure you once again, TotalEnergies has never lowered a dividend for more than 40 years, even when your company has gone through extremely violent crises like the one linked to COVID, and it is not today nor tomorrow that this will start.
Indeed, as Jean-Pierre Sbraire says, TotalEnergies is today in very good financial health, and your board is confident in your company's ability to achieve its growth objective by 2025 and the one for 2030. It wishes to continue to share these good results with you, and this is why this year and for four years in a row, the B oard has decided that dividends will increase with quarterly interim payments set at EUR 0.85, an increase of 7.6% compared to last year. By the way, I'd like to note in passing that our French individual shareholders, many of whom are in the room today, were not mistaken. At the end of last year, TotalEnergies has nearly 650,000 individual shareholders in France, an increase of 83,000 in a single year.
This is a concrete proof of the French people's attachment to TotalEnergies share and a mark of confidence in our strategy. I'd like to thank you for this. It is true that TotalEnergies shares offer very attractive remuneration since the dividend alone yields a return of more than 6% per year, and it has increased by more than 20% over the last three years, which is quite remarkable. I'd like to take advantage of this General Meeting to share with you the latest progress on our project to transform American Depository Receipts, the famous ADRs, into ordinary shares. I know this was subject to a motion last year, and I would like to once again be clear, such as Jacques Aschenbroich took part in.
Paris will remain TotalEnergies' market of introduction, and there is obviously no question of leaving France, to which your company is and will remain attached. Concretely, it is simply a matter of offering ordinary shares to American investors on the American market and not just Depository Receipts, ADRs. This is a technical question, but it is to improve liquidity of the TotalEnergies share, and this is the interest of all shareholders. Where do we stand today? Where are we? We are confirming the technical feasibility of the scheme. Our teams are working and now making progress on the contractual aspects with European and American depositories and all stakeholders involved to make the project operational as quickly as possible. We will, of course, keep you informed of the progress of this matter, your board being, of course, the guarantor of the interest of all TotalEnergies shareholders.
Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, I'd like to say that we are entering a more uncertain period, which will require us to mobilize even more. Economic challenges, fluctuations in energy markets, and environmental issues require us to be increasingly vigilant and to be able to adapt. Our strength at TotalEnergies lies in our unity and collective commitment. I'm thinking with everyone's efforts, we will be able to overcome the challenges that lie ahead and to turn uncertainties into as many opportunities. We have chosen to maintain the course of our balanced transition strategy. This strategy is the right path to follow. We are convinced about it. It will enable us to withstand the turbulence of the world in which we operate and be more resilient.
We take responsibility for it, and we advocate it with complete transparency: more energy, fewer emissions, more value for the benefit of all our employees, our customers, and for you, dear Shareholders. In these uncertain times, the support of our shareholders is a pledge of confidence and trust, but also a driving force behind our determination. We are therefore counting on your support to perpetuate the spirit of 100 years and the value that have shaped our wonderful company for over a century now. Thank you for your trust. Thank you for your attention. [Foreign language] We are now going to switch to the questions. First of all, the written questions several shareholders have asked have raised some questions. It is the Forum of Responsible Investment.
Monsieur Pascal Benoît, Monsieur Prévert, Monsieur Benoît Clergeat, Amis de la Terre France, Banque Postale Asset Management, in the name of a group of shareholders composed of First Swedish National Pension Fund, CMP Assurance, Common Spirit Health, De Groffe Financière de l'Echiquier, Forsam & Consort, RAFP, Mercy Investment Services, and Millard Howard Investments and Impact. The text of these written questions, as well as the answers from the Board, can be seen on the website totalenergies.com under TotalEnergies General Assembly. If some people have shared some questions outside of this regulatory framework, they will receive answers in a separate letter. I would like to open the debate. We're going to organize them slightly differently because we're going to start with the questions pertaining to the point on the Climate Report and to which I'm going to allocate 20 minutes according to the questions that we'll have.
There are two microphones dedicated to the sequence: Microphone 1 in the amphitheater and Microphone 5 in the other room. For those who would like to ask questions for this point on the agenda, please come close to these microphones, and we are going to start with this sequence. [Foreign language] We have an accessible platform. I am going to give the floor to Jean-Pierre according to the time that remains available to give the priority to the people in the room, and I will answer the questions as we are going to dedicate an hour for this Q&A. First of all, as a reminder, the floor is reserved to the shareholder, and please limit yourselves to one question to allow as many people as possible to voice their question.
I want to respect the members of the assembly, to respect the debates, and let everybody speak without showing any lack of content. There will be an hourglass on the screen to monitor the time. I can see that there's a person behind microphone one, so I'm going to take the very first question from the gentleman.
Hello everyone. I'm going to speak in English because my French is a little bit limited. I'm here to represent Rubeco. We are an asset manager. Our question is supported by peers, including Scottish Widows, Rabobank Pension Funds, the Swiss Association for Responsible Investments.
Today, investors are being asked to accept three things: that TotalEnergies should allocate a third of its CapEx for the next five years to new oil and gas projects, that TotalEnergies will still emit 100 million tons of scope 3 emissions in 2050, and that these emissions will be eliminated by customers developing CCS solutions that TotalEnergies may or may not contribute to at the moment. Can TotalEnergies provide more information on how the company can start to prepare its asset base and its customers for the significant scale-up of CCS implied by the current disclosure and continuing your ongoing commitment to the energy transition? Thank you.
[Foreign language] So I'm going to translate the question because I'm not certain that all of the shareholders have translated the question. The gentleman is representing Rubeco and a group of shareholders, if I understood, and was raising a question as to the strategy by 2050 for TotalEnergies, considering that we invest one third of our CapEx in new oil and gas projects. The second point was that I forgot the second. The third point again was that by 2050, we will still have 100 million tons of Scope 3 emissions and that the plan says that we'll do some CCS, some carbon capture and storage, to net the last 100 million tonnes. The representative of Rubeco is saying he doesn't see the investment of TotalEnergies corresponding to this netting by 2050, or at least requesting to have more clarification on the trajectory that will allow us to get to this ambition of carbon neutrality together with society. I hope I have summarized properly your question.
First of all, 2050 is far into the future. What I've tried to explain is that I hope that the efforts that we're doing today are to put the company on the trajectory that makes it possible to evolve the mix of our energies. I think we'll get to this in 2030. We've built this pillar of integrated work that will be 20% of our business. We'll do it in 10 years, and by 2050, it could represent 50%. It doesn't seem insurmountable. We just need to continue to make these efforts, and the electricity market is the one that is growing most. There's a coherence, and we will need to continue with this trajectory to be more and more electricity providers, and that will allow us to get from 100. For me, that seems to be the first effort that we need to do.
Of course, there can be other things beyond electricity. There are other businesses that can be developed, for instance, synthetic fuels by then, these famous molecules using biogas. When we get to 100, of course, we'll need to net to compensate. There are two aspects that I can see. One that we shouldn't forget, which is nature-based solutions, and then there's CCS, Carbon Capture and Storage. On this carbon capture, we're making efforts. We're investing. We've taken a very recent decision with our colleagues of Equinor and Shell on the Northern Lights project to launch a second phase when we don't have all of the clients, because the big difficulty is that everybody tells us we have to do this when we look for clients, given that it's not free. It's not just storage and transport. We need to capture it. It's about EUR 150 per tonne.
We're taking some risks. We've decided to invest in Phase II of Northern Lights. We are partners of a project in the U.K., NEP, with 10%. We've purchased a project during 2024 in the United States to be able to use it for the emissions of Port Arthur. We are currently working on a project in Australia with Impacts, as well as in Malaysia. We have two more projects in our portfolio in Europe because the North Sea is what seems most interesting to us in the Netherlands with Rubeco, where Aramis is a project that for me is a significant project, and we hope to have the support of Dutch authorities. Then a final project in Denmark.
We've got a diversified portfolio of CCS projects that we're growing, and the dilemma that we have, like many of our colleagues, is we need to grow it, but we need clients to use the storage capacity, and that is the general dilemma on energy transition. That said, honestly, telling ourselves that by 2050 we'll be capable of going to store 50 million tons doesn't seem impossible. We just need to continue to invest. What I can imagine is that where today the low carbon energy of $4 billion-$5 billion, if we want to be on the trajectory that we describe, they'll have more weight. In any case, what we're currently doing is that we're giving ourselves the means of understanding these technologies, of having a first portfolio of assets to meet these demands.
Once again, I think as the market develops, especially the Carbon Capture and Storage market, TotalEnergies needs to be present there. In order for this to develop, the price of carbon needs to increase, and there the loop will loop in. It is important in the expression that we have of our ambition for 2050. It is together with society. TotalEnergies cannot be neutral on its own in 2050 unless it disappears. It can only do it if all of the society accepts a price of carbon. As you know, we still have efforts to make, but we want to contribute in this. Thank you for the question. I am going to take Question Number 5 because there is a person in the other room.
Sir, we cannot hear it. One, two, three, four. Okay. Hello, Mr. CEO. I am Christophe Zeller. I am an individual shareholder. I wanted to ask you a question on climate. As everybody, I took the 500-700 page document that I read carefully, and there's something that disturbs me is that you don't distinguish between renewable energies that are manageable and the renewable energies that are not manageable. Why I'm asking you the question, you saw, like us, that there has been a very significant blackout in Spain and in Italy, more fundamentally in Spain, and that the question of renewable energies was raised, especially the ones that we can't manage, like wind farms. You've invested in VSB, which has cost a lot of money, and my question was, you haven't spoken a lot about hydrogen, and in France, we have discovered some white hydrogen in the east of France.
Why are you talking more about wind farms that you can't manage when you could have renewable energies like white hydrogen directly operable that could be a very superior substitution to these wind farms? Thank you, Mr. CEO.
I am now going to open the debate on hydrogen. I am going to specifically answer the question. Of course, we have looked at the question of white hydrogen, especially in France. What was found was very small and limited. It is the field that can be interesting, but it is not the size of what we are looking to do, and it also raises some technical issues that are not simple questions in terms of impurity. We have considered, maybe wrongly, that it was not a business that would contribute very quickly to our mix. What is non-manageable in terms of solar and wind is completed by CCGTs that are manageable.
We'll see later if we can replace the CCGTs with biomethane or hydrogen, because today we need to make sure that the energy we produce is affordable for our clients. It's essential if we want to have people on Board with what we're doing. Today, if we were combining, and I can guarantee we've done the calculation of wind and solar and hydrogen plants, you would not buy the electricity that we could produce because it would not be affordable. Your idea is a good one, and that's the whole debate of transition. We need to implement these manageable renewable ideas as we make some progress on the decrease of their cost. What is partially manageable is debates, but that's another debate. Thank you for your question. I'm going to take a question on Microphone 1.
Hello. I'm French, but I will speak in English to be understood by all of the shareholders. Thank you. I believe that the shareholders in the room are predominantly French speakers. My name is Tarek Behouche. I am here on behalf of Follow This Sioux Green Shareholder. We support TotalEnergies to reduce all emissions, and our ask represents 30% of your shareholders who voted in favor of our resolution in 2023. Thanks to this investor support for change, TotalEnergies was the only one among its peers not scrapping climate targets, as you said, as Shell and BP did after investors reduced pressure to reduce emissions. In 2023, TotalEnergies reported 26% of investment in clean energy, according to your CSRD-aligned reporting. However, in 2024, you almost halved your CapEx in the energy transition to 16%. This means that 84% of your CapEx is still tied to fossil fuel activities.
We think that you can only be in a transition when more of your investment goes to new business models than in the old business models. I'm quoting you answering, Mr. Achman, Monsieur Pouyanné. Elles prendront plus de poids, just a minute ago. Therefore, my question is, when does TotalEnergies anticipate to cross the 50%-50% line with this very indicator? Thank you.
The question of the gentleman of the Follow This , Mr. Tarek Behouche, had to do with the investments that we dedicate to energy transition. He refers to, I'm looking for the report because I don't have the same figures in mind. He's referring to the European Taxonomy, where we were reporting CapEx of 26% dedicated to green taxonomy in 2023, and he said that we reported 16% in 2024.
I don't have the same figures in mind because you consider the CapEx that are consolidated, that the company essentially invests in equivalent assets that European Taxonomy is making distinction, and the figure has changed, and I'm reading it. It's on page. We're at 30% when we look at the eligible activities, and at 24.8% when we look at the activities aligned on the proportional view, which is the one that we follow at the level of TotalEnergies. It's the difficulty of the multiple reporting at a European level, but the 30%, 25% eligible or aligned are compliant to the reporting that Jean-Pierre Sbraire gave you earlier. That's what I can say. I don't think that we'll be at 50% before the end of the decade. We'll see later.
We have said it because we explained to our shareholders in September 2024 during the strategic presentation that the scenario in which we are of 30% on low- carbon and 70% oil and gas is the one that would manage our investments from now until 2030. Thank you. I am going to take question number five because I can see that there is a person.
Can you hear me? I am contacted. I represent Amis de la Terra France . Today, during this General Assembly, Michel Forst, the UN reporter on the Defender of the Environment, is publishing a public thing denouncing the inaction of TotalEnergies vis-à-vis the defenders of the environment in Uganda and EACOP.
It is not a question that pertains to the climate, so I will take it later. I said that the first 20 minutes would be dedicated to climate, but I will take it later.
Is there any other question, Madame? Number one, a question that is sustainability or climate? Maybe I need to wait a little bit more. It is broader and includes climate, so go ahead. It has to do with Mozambique. I will take it later then. Is there another question? I do not negate it. Not the question on Uganda from the gentleman of Amis de le Terre or yours about Mozambique. I just wanted to wrap up the first point before I try to order this debate. Is there another person on five? I can see the gentleman raising his hand, so please take microphone number five. Thank you.
August, member of this member, member of the Board, member of the Executive Committee, Mr. Pouyanné, thank you for welcoming me. I am just 21, and I admire you, but that is not the question. My question is as follows.
We are in France, and you are a great environmentalist, more than I am, and I'm just barely 21. We can see that in spite of your environmentalist aspect, you are in all of the oil majors, the ones that have the lowest CO2. We can see it on the various reports of the rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's. In spite of this commitment, we also see that a lot of public policies or private policies are criticizing the policy of the company, etc. My question is, please reassure me and tell me there's no real impact on this hatred that some public powers can have about the company. Reassure me and tell me when we see tens of people criticizing TotalEnergies. At the end of the day, it doesn't have that much impact. I know I'm long. Please tell me personally how we get an interview with you.
That is complicated. First of all, I'm not an environmentalist because I let you tell me. My mission is to be the CEO of TotalEnergies, a company that is transitioning. If I don't raise the point, I'm going to be accused of greenwashing. Personally, in my career, I was always in charge of these questions. I think the company is trying to move in the right direction on these questions, as Aurélien Hamelle showed. On my point, I'm not certain that people are really crazy. I think that there are public policies that try to meet a social demand, which is the question of climate change. It causes questions for certain people, and they try to set up tools to make sure that companies go in the right direction. Are all of these tools good?
I'm not entirely convinced. I'm not certain that doing a 700-page report this year is the best way to make us all move forward. What will be of more interest to me is to see all of the projects that we implement. Once again, the fact that in five years, TotalEnergies now is producing 10% of electricity is a real change, and we're on the trajectory to 20%. That said, I think that we need to be committed in this debate, and I was able to speak in front of the Senate, and I think this interview struck a lot of people because some were concerned, and it gave me the opportunity in a serene and quiet aspect to talk for two hours about everything this company is doing. I think it changes the perception on these issues.
We need to have more pragmatism collectively without renouncing this ambition to move forward. I think sometimes it's this debate and this lack of pragmatism that can constrain us. Now, I want to reassure you, we have a clear goal. The Board has clear ideas on what we can and cannot do. Of course, we look at these questions with a lot of interest, and we will advocate, as I said in my answer about CCS, about the investment that we're doing according to the current demand. It does not have a negative influence. Let's be clear, it's not because of this pressure that we are committed to this strategy of transition. We are committed to this because our analysis of the demand for energy is that the demand for oil, because of the technological evolution, is at one point no longer going to grow.
Reversely, the demand for electricity is going to continue to rise. Because we are preparing the future, we want the company to be positioned and remain a big company for energy tomorrow. That is what motivates us to position ourselves on the energies with the greatest growth. Same thing for LNG. We are positioned on that because it grows. That is how we manage. This strategy allows us to be a player that is also going to contribute to energy transition via electricity. As I said in my speech, gas is also a manageable tool that contributes to this, and it is the perfect partner for renewable energies. I have reassured you. As for the interview, you need to go to see my media service. I gave it, gave too many of them recently, so it is going to have to wait for a little while.
There you have it. Now, is there a question on climate? It is the lady from Mozambique and the gentleman from five is climate as well. Go right ahead.
Hello, Noël d'Orian, shareholder to my mother, who has been a shareholder for many years. My question concerns your hydrogen strategy that I have difficulties in understanding. I thought that white hydrogen was a sector for the future because the mining industry had changes, and now we can get permits. Do you confirm that these are not projects you have for the moment? You talked about gray hydrogen. I think this is your current production method that you try to reduce because this uses hydrocarbons and produces a number of CO2 emissions. You talked about low carbon emissions, but you are not producing it yourself. You think you are going to buy it.
I don't understand what your activity is then. For me, there are several needs that are emerging when it comes to hydrogen, and one that I remember is the production of steel. In the steel industry, instead of using coke or coal, you could try to use other minerals. I think that this is a use of hydrogen as well. Would you be ready to produce hydrogen with nuclear in order to produce this industrial hydrogen? I don't believe it in transportation. I think it's not profitable, but for industrial, okay, to smoothen the production.
I think you've overgone the allocated time. I understood your question, and I think you know hydrogen very well, so I'm going to put things in the right order. First, something that is not exact in your question. The market of the industrial hydrogen is not a big market.
There are actors called Air Liquide that are called Air Products that can cover the industrial market. It's not a mass market, even if we use hydrogen in order to reduce steel, but it's not big volumes. This is why today we are not directly a producer of hydrogen. The real market that could emerge is that of transportation. Second part of the answer, yes, we are potentially users ourselves of green hydrogen because it's a way to decarbonate our industry. This is the path that we want to follow. Where I want to correct a second part of point in your speech is that if you follow what we do, we do not only buy. Our strategy consists in, at the same time, producing and buying. We have announced this summer, last summer, we announced two projects where we want to produce ourselves. There's the Lamed project.
We are going to put money in this green electrolyzer and in the Netherlands, a 250 megawatts project for an electrolyzer that will be operated by TotalEnergies with Air Liquide. Our intent is to acquire the right competencies and skills, having teams who acquire the right skills to produce green hydrogen. We're not doing it on our own. We are partnering with Air Liquide, a partner in the Netherlands, in France, that helps us to have the most efficient operations. At the moment, we ourselves are users of our production, but we don't do it because this market remains very limited for the moment. Green hydrogen is very costly. Everybody mentioned it. The prices are at EUR 8 per kilo. The gray is at 1, gray hydrogen, 1 to 8. Not many clients are ready to pay the price.
What we have observed, and I'm proud of this because we don't mention it enough, we are the company that is going to be the biggest consumer of green hydrogen. We committed for 200 tons per year already, and I know no other who has committed at this level for green hydrogen. It's a mix between procurement, buying, and producing that we will play. For the moment, if this market doesn't develop more massively, we don't see an interest for it. This is where TotalEnergies is clever. It's when we have mass energy produced as we do in LNG. We are following this closely, but what we see today is that there is a lack of clients in order to move forward with these big projects. I think I've covered this first part of questions. Now let's open to other questions.
The lady was waiting. I'm going to answer to your question on Mozambique, and then we'll go around the room, and I will take the number five, and then we'll exchange the microphones because two people were waiting for quite a while.
Nathaële Rebondy, I represent Schroders. Our question is, it concerns the situation in Mozambique and the fact that investigations for the events in 2021 have not been closed. We understood that you implemented an Action Plan linked to the assessment of human rights by Jean-Christophe Rufin and that you also want to raise the force majeure on LNG in order to restart building or construction. What guarantee can you give investors in order to ensure that the situation today is a different one and that sufficient measures are in place in order to prevent any violation of human rights? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Several answers. First, we will not be the ones to raise the force majeure in Mozambique. Mozambique are in charge of safety and security in the country, and the President of Mozambique has expressed himself to ask us to consider raising the force majeure. There are certain rumors or allegations brought by people about violation or breach of human rights, but there is no proof because each time we requested people who are criticizing us, they have no facts provided. They did not provide any proof. We took the initiative to organize an investigation and to launch this investigation about these allegations, even if they are outside of the scope of the industrial land that we are working on or operating. In 2021, there was nobody on site after the events, terrorist events in Palma. We had to evacuate this zone. These allegations are accusations in Mozambique.
We asked the president, I met the president, there was an investigation, laws, and we seized the Commission of Human Rights in Mozambique, and they are taking this case very seriously. This part relative to these allegations or accusations are those. Now, as to the President or CEO of TotalEnergies, can we relaunch the project? Are the security conditions there? Because this is my first duty for all people working there, the subcontractors, to ensure their security. My answer is yes. I'm not an expert in safety for the company. I have people alongside with me who are experts like Gina Favier. In 2021, at the time, let's be clear, this industrial zone had not been touched or hit. It was protected, and we were able to evacuate a number of civilians with maritime means that we had.
This industrial zone, which is a big, very large industrial site, security was strengthened there. Today, our will and our intention is to make sure that all people working on the project will join, be in the protected zone, and the landing tracks are included in this area so you can land the planes there. It's a 10 by 10. It's a whole perimeter where we can protect people and welcome them. The other question is not only what happens inside the zone we are controlling, but what is happening around it, because in fact, the accidents in 2021 were outside of the industrial concession. They were at Le Palma, and this is not under our responsibility. It's the responsibility of the Mozambique politicians. It was very serious for the populations at the time. We did what we could at the time.
Our employees on site tried to help evacuate a number of citizens, this situation. This is when the authorities in Mozambique had a part to play. They called upon different forces. There was a partnership between Rwanda and Mozambique, and the situation has improved greatly. There are sporadic accidents, but what we heard is that the authorities consider that the events, as those that took place in 2021, could not happen again in this area. This is what I can say. I do not know if this is reassuring to you, but we are working, of course, on these aspects. It is very important for us, and I would never take the risk to send workers or people to work for TotalEnergies if I do not consider that this zone is a safe one. I will take question number five now.
Yes, thank you. During this, the Rapporteur of the United Nations has declared publicly denouncing the inaction of TotalEnergies faced with the attacks against EACOP. It is a sixth communication by the rapporteur of the United Nations on this project. As a reminder, TotalEnergies had mandated this person, Mr. Pouyanné. You repeated today, you reminded your endorsement to freedom of speech and freedom of demonstrating. The rapporteur said clearly that it is troubling that a multinational such as TotalEnergies does not respect its public statements and is violating human rights on the ground. Intimidations, generalized violence against local communities and opponents of the projects. TotalEnergies does not respect them, and this is unbearable. Facing this, what have you done since the recommendations by Michel Forst at the time, and how do you react to this new declaration?
On the topic, this question of human rights defensors, our position is very clear, and we reminded systematically to the government in Uganda. Once again, we are not responsible of public policies in Uganda or on these topics, but once again, I repeated, and each time that there was arrest, people who were arrested and defender of rights were arrested, our teams on location immediately took contact with the authorities there and do their best to make sure that the people are released and freed as soon as possible. Myself, I had the opportunity to speak directly with the President in Uganda to ask him to please free these environmentalists on location and that we would welcome them. The company, once again, has a very clear policy that we are reasserting regularly.
We do not tolerate threats and very fairly, we are proactive when there are arrests and we are not responsible. TotalEnergies is not responsible for the behavior of the police in Uganda. Of course, we are more reacting rather than acting in this situation, and I prefer avoiding these situations. I think this is a framework that is not just Tilenga, it is much broader. Once again, it is not up to us to judge the situation. Once again, what we do, as I said in my speech, consists in promoting our values, our action principles, and to make sure that we repeat to the authorities that it is the right attitude and intervening on the topics, whether in Uganda, Mozambique, or any country around the world. This is a positive contribution, in my opinion, but maybe it is not perfect yet.
Be assured that each time I read a notice or some defender of human rights or someone representing an NGO has been arrested in Uganda, I ask my staff what we were able to do to make sure that the situation is ended as soon as possible. In any case, it is not for reasons of safety and security, it is more political. This is what I can answer you, and we will continue with this line of policies. I'm going to take now number two, question number two, please, and then move to the other room.
Mr. President, hello, de Soulange for the Association for Patrimony and Individual Shareholdership. When we look at the past of this company, I think we can trust in its future. I have two questions. The first is short. You've just inaugurated your greatest solar farm in Spain.
Not only does it save the emission of 245,000 tons of CO2 per year, but it has created 800 direct and indirect jobs. With this success, are you considering other fields of this type in Europe? My second question, you've just signed an agreement, it seems, to purchase 2 million tonnes of LNG per year for 20 years from a liquefaction plant in British Columbia, and you have acquired 5% of the operator of the project. Are you going to climb higher in the capital of this company? Thank you for your answers.
Thank you, Mr. Shareholder, and thank you for your comments on the quality of the company. I'd like to hear more projects of 250 megawatts in Europe. We've got two other, we've got other projects of this size in Spain.
One of the assets of VSB Group, the German operator that we've acquired, is that they've got projects of this size in their portfolio. I've spoken about the fact that the projects that were too small of 30 or 40 megawatts were less efficient, but it's only always access to land and the availability of space, and that's always the issue. We continue our trajectory, whether it's in Spain or in Germany. We've recently looked at projects in the U.K. We've also bought projects in Canada, in the U.S. Yes, of course, we want to continue to develop this renewable business in Europe, combined with CCGTs, because at the end of the day, if there's no more wind, I need to provide electricity. We are going to continue, and it's our ambition to find great projects of this size. Second topic, Canada. This is more perspective.
First of all, the project does not exist yet. It is a project of a plant that has some virtue. The main virtue is that it is positioned on the Pacific, right in front of the Asian clients. We have a project in Mexico that is with the same nature. We have invested a lot in the Gulf of Mexico, but to go from one side to the other, there is the Panama Canal. Not only is it not free, but today it has some concerns about technical management. It is becoming less liquid. We are looking for positions on the Pacific. We have this opportunity, and quite honestly, my teams that are selling LNG, for them, it is a great business, 2 million tons. Here we said we like to be not only the buyers, but also part of the plants. We have taken 5%. The answer is yes.
We've got more options to get higher if the projects happen, but we do not say everything all the time. It's complicated. We did not create this project, but I'm convinced we did it on Carrera Grande. We took 15% of the company, and the shares were $4 when we bought them, and they're $8 today, and they're going to continue. It's also a way for you to create value. To be continued, we'll see how this project grows in the coming years. I'm going to take the question number six. I'm going to alternate between the two.
Hello, Charles Lucet, individual shareholder. A little bit disappointed of the share performances outside of the dividend. Three points are mass share buyback, such a good thing for the shareholders.
What is the interest for the shareholders to buy back the shares, whatever their price, which is often higher than their accounting value? Why do not you introduce a criteria of multiple of the accounting value to not be exceeded, such as Warren Buffett, that varies their share buybacks according to the cost lower? It is the more you eyes. You could have bought it massively around EUR 21 in 2020. It would have been the jackpot for the shareholder. There has been almost no share buybacks in 2020 and 2021 in your annual report. Second point, on the business model service stations in France. I can see that the offer is very limited compared to what we can see in the United States, in the U.S., where the offer is a plethora, and it makes you want to buy more than we do in France. Buy what? Croissant? Not croissant, but services. In the U.S., it's extraordinary. In France?
Okay, understood. Two questions is already good. I said one in my introduction, so you need to leave some space for the others. I'll take your two questions. The first one is important. First of all, I'm going to tell you why we did not do any share buyback in 2020, because the balance sheet of the company did not allow us to do it, and we had a lot of debt. I would have loved to do it because I agree that it's better to buy when the share is low, but when the share is low, we have less revenue, and we were coming out of a period where our gearing was high, so we could not do it in 2020. The Board decided to privilege the dividend.
Unlike my peers, BP and Shell, who divided it by two or three, we maintained it. We could not maintain the dividend with a barrel at $30 and do some share buybacks. We made the choice of paying the dividend, and I am certain that the shareholders were happy with that because it is the number one request of the shareholders. You are asking a second question. Why do we continue to buy when the share was EUR 60 in 2024? I am going to say why. Because when I compare the price of TotalEnergies with my competitors, I have a ratio from 1 to 2, 1 to 2.5. You can say EUR 60 was low, and it is at EUR 50 now, and the price of the barrel decreased, and we need to continue to do these share buybacks. Why do we do these share buybacks?
Once again, because that is what is helping grow the dividend. If for the past three years we have increased the dividend by 7% per year, it's because every year we have bought 5% of the capital every year. When I grow by 7%, it's the 5% of the capital that I have bought back, which means that I have less shares to pay. The +2% from 5% to 7% is what the Board considers that the company can anticipate on the growth of its revenues. Because we are reasonable, we do plus two because we want it to be sustainable. We won't cut the dividend. This is the rationale behind the share buyback. If we had not done share buybacks over the past three years, we wouldn't have been able to grow the dividend by 7% for three years.
We would have grown it by 2%-3%. Now, again, the order of allocation of the capital is important. First of all, it's dividend that we're looking. The second point is the investments in the company, the investment program. This company has a great portfolio. It's growing, so we want to preserve these investments. Next, we look at the balance sheet and the level of debt. The share buybacks is according to all that, there's an arbitration that is made. We said last September that we could maintain the $2 billion in a market environment that was reasonable. The market conditions are moving, so the Board is monitoring this quarter after quarter, similarly to the COVID period, to see if it's reasonable to maintain the $2 billion. We will do this according to the energy market.
There's something that we do not master, neither me nor the Board, is the evolution of the price of oil and gas. We're monitoring this by quarter. There's a great change in our company. Why do we do share buybacks today? It's that because in 2022 and 2023, for us, were years that really changed the financial profile and the balance sheet of the company because we had this mana of $50 billion in 2022 that allowed us to remove the debt of the company. The balance sheet allows us to do share buybacks. At the end of last year, we were with a gearing of 8%-9%, and it gives us room for maneuver.
At the same time, the priority of the Board is dividend and investments and maintaining a healthy balance sheet because indeed, you're right, if the barrel decreases more, I might want to buy the shares lower, but I want the share price to resist. On this, the reputation of the company is that we are more resilient when the prices decrease because of our breakeven between $25, because we do not have any shade hole of our portfolios. You saw that the production costs of some of our competitors are not at the same level. What I observe is when the price of oil decreased, we have resisted. It has decreased, but we resist more than our competitors in Delta, some of the large analysts.
I'm not going to mention them to give them some advertising, otherwise the others would resent that, have shifted to buying us because we're more resilient than other majors. That's what I can tell you, but it's a great question. Concerning the service stations, why are we not selling more? I'm going to tell you, in France, there's one difference. We don't have the right to sell any alcohol in service stations. That, when you look at the business model, of course, we've looked why in the U.S. you've got some great stores. In the U.S., you can sell alcohol in, and it represents more than 30% of what U.S. service stations sell. In France, we can't do it for reasons of road security. We can in Burgundy because there's something local, but it's major because it generates revenue that helps the store move.
We can do better. It's a challenge that I give to my teams of Marketing and Services by telling them to do more. I'm going to relay your question to them, and I think they're motivated. If we are associated with Couche-Tard in Belgium, we've sold them Germany, but we're associated in Belgium, and that's because we want to learn from them how to implement stores that sell more. I have had a report that went to see how Couche-Tard is doing its stores, and indeed, they are really designed to catch the client. When you enter in a shop like this, if you leave without buying anything, it's that you have a true capacity for resistance. This is a business. A business is a marketer, and our ambition is to learn in Belgium to bring it to France.
I hope that in a few years, you'll be more satisfied with the offer of service in our stores. I'm going to switch to question maybe number three.
Hello, Mr. President. I'm Flemish, and for everybody to express myself, I'm going to speak French. That's a good thing. Thank you for the smoothness. Compared to last year, it's much better, but I was confiscated my Kindle, and I swear I didn't want to look at it during your assembly or your meeting. Second observation, I was at the third row behind, and from there, it's very difficult to see the screen behind you. I can see you, but in the background, it's more complicated.
For the tables, maybe it would be nice to have tables on both sides so we could all see the figures because I do not think you are aiming at hiding these figures, and the colors did not show them very clearly either. According to Bloomberg, TotalEnergies wants to sell 50% of its shares in biogas in France and Poland in the framework of its strategy aimed at increasing the profits in renewable energies. I really do not understand, and I do not see how the selling of biogas is going to increase the yield in renewable energies. Now that the negative prices have appeared in electricity, what is the yield for your, what the money you put into solar and renewables and photovoltaic panels as well as solar, all the PVs and all this intermittent energy?
Thank you. First, Spain and Portugal, I have not seen the report that says that these renewable energies are in question. We need to be prudent, and I think that there were other issues, namely the capacity to react of the network that was pretty slow. Let's not conclude and throw out everything all at once. In your first question, biogas. Biogas is renewable gas. We call it in English renewable gas. It remains a low carbon energy, and in fact, these are assets. I'd like to say that the capitalistic intensity of biogas is what is the highest in our entire portfolio. It is much more costly to have a barrel equivalent of biogas than one in solar.
We have the same strategy consisting in having assets, developing them, and if possible, and it's not just for profitability, it's because it's sharing risks as well, because we don't like to put all our assets at 100%. I prefer having twice 50% than 100% in one. I like to have partners that challenge my teams rather than in new activities being alone and managing biogas in Poland. For example, it's a new country, new businesses, and partners are also people who add value to our own activities. We have a partner who was very interesting in our activities. By the way, we had a great operation, one of the greatest operations when it comes to buying and selling, and we made it very profitable thanks to this 50% selling divestment. In Poland, I would be really more comfortable having 50% rather than having a partner.
It is just not just for renewables in oil and gas. You were never there at 100% either. The question is having the right partners to create value, and then it really helps have a lever effect and improve profitability. Your question on the negative electricity prices, when prices are negative, the answer is we need batteries. This is why we have SAFT. We are building batteries, making batteries in Spain. Having solar farms in batteries without batteries, it will not be positive at all. It will not be good news. We need to be able to charge batteries and to have the right number of electrons when people come home and they need electricity. Profitability of assets when it comes to renewable assets, 70% of our revenues are in quotes guaranteed by contracts and 30% are open on the market.
This means that the 70% receive an amount independently of the market price. Even if it's negative, we're paid. This is this mix that needs to be managed, and what we manage is the exposure of the 30% to the market. I don't know if this was clear enough, but the electricity business or power business continues its adventure and has a certain profitability. If you don't have solar assets, we don't have any batteries, and if we only have gas plants, it won't be a good thing either. I cannot say low- carbon electricity to my clients. We need both assets, and this is the strategy we have. I'm going to take number seven perhaps now.
Yes, hello, President Mr. Chabrerie, individual shareholder. First of all, congratulations for your strategy with more and more electricity. You said that this is the 21st century power.
My question is on AI and your vision of AI. As the CEO of NVIDIA said, NVIDIA is going to need more and more energy in an exponential way, in a growing way. What is your vision when it comes to non-intermittent energy for AI?
I'm careful when it comes to all these statements. You're all industrialists in tech and AI. Of course, in the U.S., there's a lack of electricity, so they want to force an over-offer, and they want to invest in a number of projects. Indeed, they want redundancy, and on this level in the U.S., of course, the gas plants are going to grow or restart, but they're putting a lot of pressure. The coal plants that were supposed to be disconnected, in fact, are currently restarted or maintained for longer than expected while waiting for new means.
Of course, there's the nuclear, and it's a good way to produce basic energy. I'm not going to hide this, but the energy policy in the U.S., let's not be mistaken, is pro-nuclear. This is what they want to promote. They are currently relaunching and reopening sites, and there's a warfare around this. What we need today is electricity, is a growing market, as I said, and there's a ramp-up with AI, and all means to produce electricity are good, but the better are the ones that produce less CO2 emissions. Renewables, gas, TotalEnergies will not be a producer in nuclear, but it can for its clients buy volumes of nuclear to resell it and then to answer to their needs in energy when possible.
What I think is the message is we do not just need to have means to produce, but we need the networks, the grid, and I think that for us today, that is the real blocker. These grids or networks are in the hands of regulated companies, and they need to invest much more. I am going to answer to number four now, who has been waiting for a while.
I have been told you have been waiting for a long time. Thank you, dear President. Thank you, Simone Morudi, individual shareholder. There is a great absentee in this General Meeting, geothermal energy. Could you tell us whether TotalEnergies has geothermal projects in France or elsewhere? I would like you to tell us about the future for Hutchinson, because I think I have understood for a few months that reading articles that there were concerns and worries when it comes to Hutchinson's sites, Châlette-sur-Loing and Vierzon. Châlette-sur-Loing, the Blanc-Sciaux would be, there are issues there. There are more white collars than blue collars. What about the future of Châlette-sur-Loing? In the past, it had hired foreign workers.
Okay, I'm going to be stricter because Jean-Pierre says we have already 55 minutes. Only one question, not two. You have a question on Hutchinson and geothermal energy. Can I choose? Hutchinson. Okay, Hutchinson. There are concerns, but it is at 70% subcontractor for the automotive industry in Europe. It's not doing very well. Hutchinson is in a good position. It's doing well.
In the years, it has developed its aeronautics activity with Ms. Hélène Leroy, who's doing a great job and steering the company very well. She is looking to apply the same principles that are ours. When we are forced to see our company evolve, we avoid dismissals, and at Hutchinson, they're doing the same, and they have always been very clever. It's a company that has more than 8,000 employees in France, in many cities in the center of France. They're very close to one another. There are issues when it comes or challenges when you have two sites that are 40 km apart. Do you keep both, or do you reorganize things, and you force them to move from one site to the other? I really trust the managers there, and I'm sure that Hutchinson is maintaining a sustainable Hutchinson and one that is adaptable to the.
There are evolutions in the automotive sector, of course. Hutchinson is very small value, and they're doing their maximum in order to defend sustainability of employment, and especially in France. For geothermal energy, you know our position. It's a niche market. It's just like white hydrogen. It's not heating. We are not in heating. Geothermal energy for energy, it's different, and we need to have the geothermal side coupled with energy making, and it's not necessarily the best way to produce electricity. Each time we looked into this, we were not convinced. We're looking at it regularly, of course, being specialists of the groundwater and sub-ground levels. Each time people come to talk to us about geothermal projects, but we do not see much profitability. We will continue to see for non-conventional geothermal energy, which means fracking very deep levels of geothermia.
I don't want us to have issues in local seismicity. We're going to avoid this, and we're going to take a look at what happens in the States and wait to see whether the technology is at the right level and sure and secure. Who should I answer to now? Mr. Question number eight.
Yes, hello. I come from Toulouse, and my name is Benoît Boisset. Can you do shareholders' meetings in Toulouse?
I promise, there will be one. Vincent Granier-Renaud-Lions have just received the instruction. I like Toulouse. We owe Toulouse a lot because our history is very linked to Toulouse, as you know. If we can have even more shareholders because of you, please leave your name, and they'll organize a visit and bring us shareholders in Toulouse. I'd be delighted. My mother is from Ariège, so it's not far. I don't think I'll come myself, but we will do the meeting that you ask for, I promise. Next, moving to number one. You've been waiting for a while.
Yes, hello, sir. Mr. Luchet, individual shareholder from Maisons- Laffitte. Little simple question. Two or three years ago, you said to me, "Give me a step and I'll take it." There is one in Montesquieu. EDF has all of the plants. It's stuck in Brussels. You do just as you do in Africa, you do the project owner, and EDF can be the project manager, and it will be good if EDF sees us as their project owner of their electrical work. That is what you do in Africa, indeed.
In Africa, we did more this year because we bought the hydroelectric assets that we have in Uganda, not just the asset, but people who are competent, Norwegians, including a team of hydroelectric experts based in Norway, Norway being a great country of hydroelectricity. I remain on the idea that steps are good, and my teams are looking. They have presented a giant project on Loch Ness, and I said no because it is too big. I like smaller steps. Can you tell me what are the relationships with Algeria?
I was in Algeria recently. The business continues between TotalEnergies and Sonatrach. Since 2015, I have been speaking with Sonatrach. We continue to do business with them. We have re-signed an extension of our Liquefied Natural Gas contracts for 2026, year after year. We have gas fields and oil fields, and the relationship between TotalEnergies and Sonatrach is good. I'm going to take Question Number 6, maybe.
Thank you, Monsieur Pouyanné and Board of Directors, shareholders. I'm John Beard from Port Arthur, Texas. By the way, you say you don't go to some of those cities much, but you're always welcome to come to Texas, to Port Arthur, where you have a facility. I'll keep the barbecue hot and the beer or the wine cold.
I've been to Port Arthur three or four times in my life, so I know quite well this part of the U.S.
Good, good. Here's what I want to speak to you about today. Your plant in Port Arthur, you know, first of all, let me congratulate you on what you all have done so far in terms of shareholder return and value and really promoting the company. I come from a background with oil and gas from ExxonMobil.
Don't hold that against me. Here's what I want to say. Your plant in Port Arthur emits high levels of benzene, and Port Arthur is a cancer cluster in part because of that. In Arlington, Texas, our colleagues there, where you're drilling wells, are emitting high levels of methane, which is hazardous to the health of the young children, where one out of five kids has asthma because of it. These wells and these facilities are in communities of color that are basically brown and black. The question is this: why does TotalEnergies not value the human rights of people to clean air in Port Arthur and Arlington? Will you take immediate action to end such deadly practices? Thank you, sir.
The question has to do with the refinery in Port Arthur, and the gentleman is asking us to improve the quality of air in Port Arthur for local communities. I can see he has got a headset, so he can understand. TotalEnergies is not drilling any oil wells in Port Arthur. We have got a refinery that is significant. I can tell you that we have been tracking the environmental performances there, and the U.S. EPA is also tracking it. I know we can do better. We have had incidents. We do not always respect the limit of the emissions. This is part of the fact that the refinery is not always operating very well. Jean-Pierre mentioned it. In 2024, we had a few operational concerns.
When you've got operational concerns in a refinery, it's harder to control its emissions because operational excellence, environment, and quality all go together. I can tell you a very energetic action plan has been launched in Port Arthur with many changes of the people in charge of this refinery. The main objective is to run the refinery like a clock. If it runs like a clock, you won't have any emission of pollutants. I'm taking your message very seriously. We must make sure that all of our sites respect the environmental limits and are committed to you. I'm not certain that Port Arthur is the only responsible for the air quality in the area in question. Thank you for coming to share this message. I can see Vincent Stoquart, the Head of Refining and Chemicals, in front of me.
It'll be a good motivation for him to tell his teams to make this refinery work even better, not just for the economic results. Thank you, sir. Microphone one.
I apologize for speaking in English, and also if you have already addressed my question because my French is not so good. I'm Rasmus Bessing, co-CIO at PFA, a pension fund in Denmark, a long-standing investor with you. On behalf of PFA, we support and congratulate the Board and management of the annual results and the strong execution of the strategy. In particular, we appreciate TotalEnergies' continued commitment to the energy transition at a point in time when other peers have taken a U-turn. However, I have one point that I would like to raise today, and that is really regarding single projects continue to center for negative attention.
While I appreciate that you have tried to address the critique of the EACOP project in Uganda by, among other things, initiating and commissioning a third-party audit to be published later this year, we remain concerned with regards to the long-standing risk that comes with these kinds of projects, especially fossil fuel projects in sensitive regions. Restarting the activities in Mozambique does not come without risk. To my question, will you be able to document best practices, ensure stakeholders' concerns, including safety, human rights, and local communities? I addressed prior, probably beforehand. Thank you very much.
Okay, it is a good remark. Thank you for the support of PFA. We appreciate it a lot. We know that Denmark is part of the company. Since we acquired Merco, we have a special attention. [Foreign language]
I'm sorry, I was speaking in English. The question of the gentleman has to do with the studies that we carry out before we launch a project in Uganda and Mozambique to be sure that we carry out this project in the best social and environmental conditions. The gentleman comes from Denmark, and he supports the company, and he suggests that we take the initiative to make public. It's what we do. We don't always do it in a very readable way. The difficulty is we carry out a lot of studies, and we publish them, and then we need to look in all of the studies for the essence of this. In Mozambique, there's been a lot of due diligence on human rights done by external experts.
I think it's a good idea to have a document that summarizes all of the fundamentals and explains why we consider that we can restart the operations in Mozambique. We are going to do this, and I thank you for this suggestion. As you say, when we are in Mozambique, we've had the refund report, and I made sure personally that all of the recommendations are properly implemented. All of these are actions that we need to better implement to understand our approach. This is why I said in my speech that we implement our values and our principles of action and that we do not leave this discrepancy in the perception settled in between what opponents are saying and the reality of what we see. It's up to us to take these initiatives to share it, and we're going to do it. I don't think I can answer the new shareholders. I think that somebody is waiting at question number five because we're exceeding time.
Hello, Mr. CEO and shareholders. If I take the floor because I have a lot of admiration for Jean-Louis Tien, and I learned that the foundation TotalEnergies was supporting his project to study the interactions between climate and oceans.
Here, we're building a new exploration ship that is indeed going to cross. It's going to get close to Greenland, to Clipperton, to the Arctic zone. This project that costs $26 million and is mired. I wanted to know if TotalEnergies could add $4 million that is going to serve the general interest as TotalEnergies was able to do on multiple occasions. We support this project with a significant amount from the foundation.
TotalEnergies does not have a vocation to go and finance the holes that the state is creating in all of the projects because if there's a lack, we support, and we know Jean-Louis Tien very well. In the past, we had supported an adventure with him that unfortunately had failed. So we have committed very early with him, but it's important to have several partners in this type of project because we are not the only ones that are going to attest to the science validity of this. I hope that Jean-Louis Tien will find the support and launch his project recently. He knows he can count on us through the means that we've made available to him. Microphone number two. Number one then, if there's no longer anyone number two. We still have number six, and then I'll stop. No, I saw you before, so you cannot ask another question. Number one and six, and then we'll stop at that.
Fredrik Nyström representing AP3 and AP4, two buffer funds in the Swedish pension system. We are managing assets on behalf of Swedish pensioners today and tomorrow. We have been investors in TotalEnergies for a long time, and we are supportive of the climate strategies you have, even though we still see room for improvement. Your business model entails some heightened human rights risks, and that is what I want to address today. First of all, let me stress the importance of publishing this report about the situation in Uganda and Tanzania as soon as possible. Regarding the Mozambique LNG Foundation, the $200 million fund, it plays an important role in Cabo Delgado, and we encourage you to provide more substantial info about the foundation priorities and governance.
Can you explain how the voice and needs of the local population are taken into account? Secondly, in light of the challenging situation in the area and the ongoing unresolved conflict, how does the foundation's priorities relate to and take into account the specific risks posed by the conflict situation?
The gentleman represents a Swedish fund, AP3, AP4, and is asking questions on Mozambique that we announced after the refund report, the creation of a foundation which is specifically dedicated to local development. The idea of the foundation is it's an important amount. We dedicated $200 million, and we're not making any money with it in Mozambique. It is in order to create an activity and thus for close populations, populations near the site can find benefits and revenues. We are creating employment in an area which was unfortunately devastated by terrorists.
There is a whole number of local actions. I am making the connection between this suggestion and the previous question. I think that indeed we need to highlight the way in which the foundation is working. It is a real foundation. It is not someone from TotalEnergies who is leading it. We recruited someone recommended by Mr. Ruffin, a specialist in local development, human rights, working with the United Nations. We entrusted this person with steering this foundation. We have not had the opportunity in Sustainability and Climate Report to refer to it, but yes, it is important to look at the situation and explain concretely how things are going there. I want things to, I think everything is going well and smoothly, but once again, we thank you for the suggestion. Do we have any last question? Microphone 6. I said I would stop. Is that right?
Yes. Dear Chair, I'm going to be brief. In your speech, you provided the societal aspect and answer of the company in France, and namely by answering to the current president when different candidates or parties and their programs, how do you see recommendations that could be made in two years and specifically as a future retired person? How could I take advantage of your generous dividends? No, that's not complicated. Pension funds are the secret. Companies will be more robust, and companies like TotalEnergies and French shareholding will go up, and I will be the most delighted one. There are some pension funds of French companies that are investing in TotalEnergies thanks to the dividend policy. So I'm convinced that in France, it's a bad word, but I can do it.
I'm at TotalEnergies, but I see that the Secretary of the CFDT is not opposed to that. As long as we don't accept talk about capitalization in one way or the other, we're not going to solve the issues. We need to make sure that access to finance a population of retirees that are increasing. I'm talking in the name of TotalEnergies. I'm a strong defender of these French capitals investing in the right companies as ours, and thus will help stabilize and reach one day, hopefully, the 30% of individual shareholders. This is the proposal I can or suggestion I can make. I see we have a person waiting. Let's take number five, the last question. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm an individual shareholder. My question is, what do you do to make sure that there's a smooth transition from fossil fuels to renewables?
I will answer this question. Is that all? What about low- carbon or decarbonized energies? Do you consider that the progress towards this aim is at the right level compared to the technological progress that we see currently and the level of research we have? I think we have to stop at that. Honestly, we talked about this extensively. We said how we want to implement the transition. This is our strategy and use all of the new energies technicalities. With the Board of Directors, we try to find the right balance to strike it. We are following very closely. Maria van der Hoeven has followed all the technological advances, and this is how you decrease costs and you make progress towards low carbon energy. Your question is very relevant and helps me conclude this discussion, very rich when looking at the future and talking about technology.
Thank you, gentlemen. I think we will now move on to voting on our resolutions. I should have a figure that I have not seen yet. According to the list of people present today, the present shareholders having expressed voices by post 1,547,887,609. This is a quorum higher than one- fourth of the shares and helps us voting to the resolutions. I say that the shareholders having voted before represent 1,538,935,000 shares and something. For the next session, we are now going to vote on our resolutions. The voting will be done thanks to the electronic tablet given during signing your presence sheet, and it is very simple to use. You just need to press two buttons. Staff is available to help you if necessary. In order to vote, a tablet has been given to you upon arrival. It is strictly personal and will be used only during this General Meeting.
The voting window will open automatically when a resolution is announced, even if this one is on watch mode. To vote, nothing simpler, just press the button corresponding to your choice for abstention or against. Press OK to validate your choice before the closing of the voting session. Once your vote is validated, you can no longer modify it. Thank you for giving back the tablets when exiting the room. I will now give the floor to Jean-Pierre Sbraire, your Secretary, who will present the different resolutions before the vote, and I will announce the voting and closing and the results.
I remind you that the text of resolutions are on page 29 to 35 on the Notice, and we will not read them fully. Each resolution will be identified with its number and summarized before being submitted to the voting.
Resolutions number 1 to 13 and Resolution A is under competence of the Ordinary General Meeting and must be passed by a majority of the votes cast to be adopted. Resolutions 14 and 15 fall within the remit of the Extraordinary General Meeting and must be passed by a two-thirds majority of the votes cast to be adopted. First resolution, approval of the parent financial statements of TotalEnergies for fiscal year 2024 with the benefit of the parent company of EUR 15.275 million. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted. The Second Resolution is to approve the consolidated balance sheet and financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2024, which show a net profit attributable to TotalEnergies of $16.6 billion. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is also adopted.
The Third Resolution is to determine the allocation of TotalEnergies' net income. You're asked to approve the distribution of a dividend per share of EUR 3.22 in respect of the 2024 financial year. Taking into account the three interim dividends of EUR 0.79 already distributed, the final dividend for 2024 is at EUR 0.85 per share. It will be paid on July 1st, 2025. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution, everyone wants dividends. It's adopted, highly adopted. I don't know if we've seen this figure before. The Fourth Resolution is to authorize the Board of Directors to buy, back, or sell shares in the company in accordance with the legal provisions in force and the terms and conditions shown on the screen. This authorization will be granted for a period of 18 months from the date of this General Meeting.
Voting is open. The ballot is closed. Resolution is adopted. The fifth resolution is to approve the statutory auditor special report on agreements governed by articles L. 225-38 and following of the French Commercial Code, which does not include any new agreements. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted. Even better than for our dividends. The sixth resolution is to renew the term of office of Mrs. Lise Croteau as Director for a period of three years. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted. Congratulations to Lise to pursue her mission within the Board. Lise is going to become the Head of the Audit Committee . Thank you very much for your trust. The seventh resolution is to appoint Mrs. Hélène Liébert as director for a term of three years. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. On was at the same level as dividends. Congratulations.
Hélène is joining the Board of Directors and will provide, as she said, her different cultures, Korean and French. The Eighth Resolution is to appoint Mr. Laurent Mignon as a Director for a term of three years. Voting is open. Voting is closed. Sorry, I forgot to say it was open. Laurent Mignon is also elected with 60% of votes. Thank you. I'll make a short comment. People called to vote against. They hadn't understood that his candidacy respects the MEDEF Code in a precise way. Laurent Mignon is CEO of a company, an investment, Wendel, and his job means supervising Bureau Veritas. And as a CEO, he can have two other directors' positions, and we followed the Code. Laurent Mignon, I confirm, is hired and will take part in our, um, already takes part in his committee. We will prove through facts that they were wrong in thinking so.
Thank you to all the shareholders who entrusted us. Laurent will really add beautifully to our Board of Directors. It's not easy to come after the previous members, but he will do beautifully. What do I need? I need to read something. Resolution 9 and 1 concern the appointment of a Director representing employee shareholders. You're asked to choose one of the two candidates nominated in accordance with the provisions of Article L. 225-102 of the French Commercial Code and Article 11 of the Articles of the Association. Resolution 9 was approved by the Board of Directors. Resolution A was not approved. The candidate who received the highest number of votes will be appointed, provided that the resolution to appoint him or her receives a majority of the votes cast. I will announce the outcome of the votes on these two resolutions after the vote on Resolution A.
We're moving on to the Ninth Resolution. It is to appoint Mrs. Valérie Della Puppa as Director representing employee shareholders for a term of three years. Valérie was nominated by the Supervisory Board of the FCPE TotalEnergies Actionariat France, holding 111.5 million TotalEnergies shares, December 31, 2024. Valérie Della Puppa's application was approved by the Board of Directors. Voting is open. The ballot is closed.
Resolution A is to appoint Mrs. Hazel Clinton Fowler as Director representing employee shareholders for a term of three years. Mrs. Hazel Clinton Fowler was nominated as a candidate by the Supervisory Board of FCPE TotalEnergies Actionariat International Capitalization, holding 42 million TotalEnergies shares on December 31. Resolution A was not approved by your Board of Directors.
Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The Ninth Resolution received the highest number of votes and a majority of the votes cast, as you can see on the screen. Mrs. Valérie Della Puppa is therefore appointed Director representing employee shareholders. Resolution A was not adopted, but I want to thank Mrs. Hazel Clinton Fowler for being a candidate for the International Fund. Congratulations to Valérie Della Puppa . She's already been a member of the Board before, and she comes back, and she's just going to be just at home.
The Tenth Resolution is to approve the information relating to the remuneration of corporate officers mentioned in Article L. 22-10-9 of the French Commercial Code as presented in the Corporate Governance Report included in the company's 2024 Universal Registration Document in Chapter 4, section 4.3.1.2 and 4.3.2.1.
Voting is now open. The ballot is closed.
The resolution is adopted. The Eleventh Resolution is to set the total annual remuneration of the directors and to approve the remuneration policy applicable to them as presented in the Corporate Governance Report contained in the company's Universal Registration Document 2024, chapter 4.4.3.1. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is approved. The Twelfth Resolution is to approve the fixed, variable, and exceptional components of the total remuneration and benefits in kind paid during the 2024 financial year or awarded in respect of that year to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of your company. They are set out in the Corporate Governance Report in the company's 2024 Registration Document, Chapter 4.4.3.2.1.
Voting is now open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted. Thank you.
Resolution 13 is to approve the remuneration policy applicable to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer as presented in the corporate governance report included in the company's 2024 Registration Document, Chapter 4.4.3.2.2. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted. Resolution 14 is to authorize the board of attribution to allocate shares in the company to employees or executive directors of the company in accordance with the provisions of Articles L. 225-197-1 and L. 22-10-59 and sequential of the French Commercial Code. Voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted. Resolution 15 is to delegate authority to the Board of Directors to carry out capital increases reserved for employees and members of a company or group savings plan.
The voting is open. The ballot is closed. The resolution is adopted, and it corresponds to everything that I said about employee shareholdership, and thank you for your vote. Now that all of the resolutions have been put to a vote, I would ask you to return your electronic tablets and headphones when you leave the room. Hostesses are on hand to help you find your way around. The detailed results of the vote by resolution will be posted online on the TotalEnergies website under General Meetings, General Meeting 2025. The dates of our next meeting are shown on the screen. Our next Annual General Meeting is scheduled for the 26th of May 2026. The resolution having been passed and there is no further business, I declare the meeting adjourned.
I really thank you all for the peace and quiet of this General Assembly, the questions that allowed us to have a quality debate and to answer many of your questions. Thank you to all of the teams that have worked very hard for this General Meeting to take place in the best conditions. Thank you to them and thank you to you all.