Fossil fuel projects: NGOs ask investors to cut TotalEnergies’ main sources of finance

By Antoine Bouhey, Lara Cuvelier, Helen Burley*
Reclaim Finance has joined 58 NGOs from around the world, including Banktrack, in signing an open letter calling on banks and investors to stop participating in bonds (loans granted by investors and facilitated by banks) issued by TotalEnergies.
The 58 NGO signatories include 350.org, Amazon Watch, BankTrack, Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights (CELCOR, Papua New Guinea), Justiça Ambiental (Mozambique) and Friday for Future (Uganda), Oil Change International and Urgewald (Germany).
Bonds are the French oil and gas major’s main source of financing, and as such enable it to pursue its climate-wrecking strategy by developing new oil and gas projects, ignoring scientific recommendations to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The letters come just days after TotalEnergies raised US$4.25 billion on the bond market, with the help of several banks, including BPCE/Natixis, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank. With four existing bonds due to expire this year, the NGOs are warning banks and investors against their renewal.
TotalEnergies currently has 45 active bonds, totaling US$48.9 billion, with bonds accounting for some 68% of its financing between 2016 and 2022. Between 2016 and 2022, TotalEnergies raised US$37.6 billion via bonds. Last week, TotalEnergies raised US$4.25 billion on the bond market supported by banks, including Standard Chartered, BPCE/Natixis, and Deutsche Bank.
BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole did not participate in the bond, even though they are the biggest financiers of TotalEnergies.
The company, which shows no sign of transitioning away from oil and gas, can use this finance to continue its strategy of developing new oil and gas projects in 53 countries, including Mozambique, Papua New Guinea and South Africa.
Finance raised via bonds is used for “general corporate purposes” and so can be used by the company as they wish. The map of countries where TotalEnergies is active and/or planning new projects is available here.
Bonds are particularly useful to TotalEnergies given that some banks, particularly French banks, have pledged to stop directly financing some of its more controversial projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) or Papua LNG.

Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Société Générale and BPCE/Natixis have said they will not finance the controversial Papua LNG project in Papua New Guinea and TotalEnergies announced on 8 April that the project’s Final Investment Decision has been postponed yet again, to 2025.”
By helping TotalEnergies to raise money on the bond market, they are indirectly enabling it to finance these projects.
Bonds are more discreet than project financing and provide TotalEnergies with a veritable El Dorado. It’s mind blowing to see that the financial players involved in Total’s latest bond are agreeing to finance Total until 2064! It is more than time that the investors and the banks behind these colossal transactions recognized their responsibility in financing Total’s climate-wrecking strategy.
The NGOs are calling on the banks to commit to no longer facilitating the issue of new bonds by TotalEnergies or any other company developing new oil and gas projects. They are also calling on investors to stop investing in new bonds issued by TotalEnergies and to make a public commitment not to invest in bonds issued by any company developing new oil and gas projects.
With 10 of TotalEnergies; 45 active bonds due to expire by the end of 2025, it is possible that the company will seek to renew them in order to raise capital. Four bonds mature in 2024 and six mature in 2025.
Faced with this risk, 58 NGOs have sent an open letter to the banks and investors involved in TotalEnergies’ most recent bonds, including Abrdn, Allianz, Amundi, BlackRock, Bank of America, Barclays, NatWest, Deutsche Bank and Société Générale asking them not to renew their support.Find the briefing here.
---
*With Reclaim Finance. Source: BankTrack

Comments

10,000 students deprived of classes as Ahmedabad school remains shut: MCC writes to Gujarat CM

By A Representative The Minority Coordination Committee (MCC) has written to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, urging him to immediately reopen the Seventh Day Adventist School in Maninagar, Ahmedabad, where classes have been suspended for nearly two weeks. The MCC claims that the suspension, following a violent incident, violates the constitutional right to education of thousands of children.

Gujarat minority rights group seeks suspension of Botad police officials for brutal assault on minor

By A Representative A human rights group, the Minority Coordination Committee (MCC) Gujarat, has written to the Director General of Police (DGP), Gandhinagar, demanding the immediate suspension and criminal action against police personnel of Botad police station for allegedly brutally assaulting a minor boy from the Muslim community.

On Teachers’ Day, remembering Mother Teresa as the teacher of compassion

By Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ It is Teachers’ Day once again! Significantly, the day also marks the Feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta (still lovingly called Mother Teresa). In 2012, the United Nations, as a fitting tribute to her, declared this day the International Day of Charity. A day pregnant with meaning—one that we must celebrate as meaningfully as possible.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification.

Gandhiji quoted as saying his anti-untouchability view has little space for inter-dining with "lower" castes

By A Representative A senior activist close to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar has defended top Booker prize winning novelist Arundhati Roy’s controversial utterance on Gandhiji that “his doctrine of nonviolence was based on an acceptance of the most brutal social hierarchy the world has ever known, the caste system.” Surprised at the police seeking video footage and transcript of Roy’s Mahatma Ayyankali memorial lecture at the Kerala University on July 17, Nandini K Oza in a recent blog quotes from available sources to “prove” that Gandhiji indeed believed in “removal of untouchability within the caste system.”

'Govts must walk the talk on gender equality, right to health, human rights to deliver SDGs by 2030'

By A Representative With just 64 months left to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global health and rights advocates have called upon governments to honour their commitments on gender equality and the human right to health. Speaking ahead of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), experts warned that rising anti-rights and anti-gender pushes are threatening hard-won progress on SDG-3 (health and wellbeing) and SDG-5 (gender equality).

Is U.S. fast losing its financial and technological edge under Trump’s second tenure?

By Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra* The United States, along with its Western European allies, once promoted globalization as a democratic force that would deliver shared prosperity and balanced growth. That promise has unraveled. Globalization, instead of building an even world, has produced one defined by inequality, asymmetry of power, and new vulnerabilities. For decades, Washington successfully turned this system to its advantage. Today, however, under Trump’s second administration, America is attempting to exploit the weaknesses of others without acknowledging how exposed it has become itself.

What mainstream economists won’t tell you about Chinese modernisation

By Shiran Illanperuma China’s modernisation has been one of the most remarkable processes of the 21st century and one that has sparked endless academic debate. Meng Jie (孟捷), a distinguished professor from the School of Marxism at Fudan University in Shanghai, has spent the better part of his career unpacking this process to better understand what has taken place.

Counterview

Search This Blog