French oil major Total last Thursday said it fared better in 2015 than its oil industry rivals during the past year. Adjusted net income for 2015 was $10.51 billion, down 18% from $12.84 billion the previous year. By contrast BP and Shell reported that their profits fell by more than 40% last year. Total said that even though oil prices plummeted around 50% in 2015 the group was able to limit the decline of its full-year profits. Full year 2015 revenue was $165.4 billion compared to full year 2014 revenue of $236.1 billion.
Total Board Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné said: Hydrocarbon prices fell sharply in 2015 with Brent decreasing by around 50%. In this context, Total generated adjusted net results of $10.5 billion, a decrease of 18% compared to 2014, the best performance among the majors. This resilience in a degraded environment demonstrates the effectiveness of the groups integrated model and the full mobilization of its teams."
Total was able to cuts costs by $1.5 billion last year, exceeding its plans to save $1.2 billion. It also shaved 15% from its organic capital expenditure in 2015 compared to the year before.
The company's upstream production rose 9.4% last year and it also enjoyed stronger performance in its downstream businesses.
Mr Pouyanné said: Refining and chemicals was able to fully benefit from good margins thanks to the high availability of its installations. The marketing and services segment grew strongly, with retail networks growing by 6% and lubricants growing by 3%."
Fourth quarter revenue was $37.7 billion compared to fourth quarter 2014 revenue of $52.5 billion. EBITDA was essentially identical while Total says its fourth quarter profit adjusted for changes in the value of inventories and one-time items dropped 26 percent to $2.08 billion from $2.80 billion in the same period a year earlier.
