Skip to content Skip to Search
Skip navigation

France in talks with Abu Dhabi to import fuel this winter

Symbol, Sign, Scissors Reuters/Stephane Mahe
The deal was signed in 2021 for TotalEnergies to build four oil, gas and renewables projects

France is talking to Abu Dhabi about importing fuel and diesel for the coming winter season, TotalEnergies Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanne said, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Pouyanne told the French Senate this was a response to the Russia/Ukraine conflict, which has impacted Russian energy supplies to Europe.

Fuel prices in France were at $2.27 a litre last month, according to Trading Economics website, up from a low of $1.91 a letre in December.

Last month, G7 leaders – which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US – were considering the feasibility of introducing a price cap on energy imports.

“The feasibility of implementing such price caps is highly doubtful,” Ramy Al-Ashmawy, senior energy specialist at the Saudi-based Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP), told AGBI.

With prices rising across Europe, Al-Ashmawy said a better alternative to a price cap would be for G7 governments to consider using their tax apparatus to reduce prices at the petrol pumps.

“The only possible way to reduce energy prices for end users is through each government applying variable tax cuts on energy commodities to cool down domestic end user prices up to a certain point,” he said.

Latest articles

Aircraft, Flight, Transportation

Etihad Airways potential IPO unlikely this year

The possible initial public offering (IPO) of Etihad Airways is unlikely to happen this year, a media report said. Regional geopolitical instability and a plan to show investors a strong financial performance in 2024 are key factors delaying the IPO launch, Reuters reported, citing informed sources. An Etihad spokesperson said it does not comment on […]

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority announced at a summit this week that Allam is now the largest Arabic language chat model in the world

Top Arabic chatbot title claimed by Saudi Arabia’s updated Allam

Saudi Arabia’s Arabic language artificial intelligence (AI) chat model, Allam, is now the largest Arabic-language chatbot in the world and will be available on prominent platforms by Microsoft and IBM, officials announced this week.   Allam is a “large language model”, or LLM, that was first launched by a subsidiary of the Saudi Data and Artificial […]

ESG index Emirates NBD

ESG-focused companies ‘give better shareholder returns’

Middle East listed companies that score highly on environmental, social and governance criteria provide a bigger total return for shareholders than their less ESG-conscious rivals, a corporate governance body has found. The Hawkamah Middle East and North Africa ESG Index includes the top 50 companies by ESG score from the 150 blue-chip stocks that constitute […]