As the conflict in Iran drags on, TotalEnergies and most other major oil companies have announced record profits for the first quarter of 2026. Rising fossil fuel prices and persistent geopolitical uncertainties promise equally substantial profits in the coming months, reviving debates over the taxation of these “superprofits.”

As highlighted in a public call signed by several economists, these record gains “do not reflect an increase in real economic activity nor, to any significant extent, a rise in their operating costs” and “do not reflect their own economic performance either; they stem neither from innovation nor from risk-taking, but from an external situation, namely the war in Iran”. Why not levy a tax on a portion of these profits to reduce the burden of rising prices for consumers?

Yet, the French government has chosen to turn a deaf ear, as it did in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, accepting the key argument made by TotalEnergies’ executives: that their company generates its profits where it extracts oil and gas, not in France. Thus, it would be unfair—or even “neocolonial”, according to some—for the French state to seek to collect revenue from activities located in other Global South countries, and in any case, it would be legally impossible [1].

TotalEnergies’ operations in France, which (according to the company) consist mainly of refineries, are said to be structurally unprofitable, which explains why the company rarely pays corporate taxes in France. “TotalEnergies pays its taxes in the countries where it generates profits, predominantly in the countries where it produces energy,” as the company recently summarized on Elon Musk’s social media platform.

Trading : The Hidden Side of TotalEnergies

Observatoire des multinationales has had already addressed the flaws of this argument in a previous article. The key takeaway is that, with its complex structure consisting of multiple subsidiaries that trade with one another, a group like TotalEnergies can route its profits to certain countries rather than others as it sees fit—whether the reasons be fiscal or other. In this case, the group’s French operations bear abnormally high costs, making them less profitable than those in some other European countries, despite higher or significantly higher sales volumes.

This argument is equally questionable regarding the source of TotalEnergies’ profits. Contrary to what the group and its defenders in the media and political circles suggest, a significant portion of these profits does not come actually from oil and gas extraction activities. It comes from another activity they are much less willing to discuss: the trading of fossil fuels on global markets.

Gabriel Zucman recently drew attention to this blind spot in the “fiscal transparency” report published by TotalEnergies: the existence of significant profit centers located not in the group’s main production or sales countries, but in a discreet “Rest of the World” category, where they are taxed very lightly. For the economist, these are primarily trading activities based in Switzerland.

Gabriel Zucman a récemment attiré l’attention sur ce point aveugle dans le rapport de « transparence fiscale » publié par TotalEnergies : l’existence d’importants centres de profits localisés non dans les principaux pays de production ou de vente du groupe, mais dans une discrète catégorie « Reste du monde », où ils sont très peu imposés. Pour l’économiste, il s’agit principalement des activités de « trading » ou négoce, basées en Suisse.

Highly Profitable Subsidiaries

The infographic below presents a simplified overview of TotalEnergies’ subsidiaries dedicated to trading, as well as the legal and financial channels which link them to the parent company in Paris. The two main subsidiaries are Totsa (TotalEnergies Oil Trading SA), located in Geneva, Switzerland, and which specializes in oil, and TotalEnergies Gas & Power (TGP), formally based in the United Kingdom and which specializes in gas and LNG (liquefied natural gas). However, the bulk of its operations is carried out through a branch also located in Geneva.

TotalEnergies or to other customers. In the process, they seek to achieve a more or less important benefit from this trade, whether at the expense of external companies with which they do business, but also potentially (and this is the strategic issue of profit allocation within the group) at the expense of other TotalEnergies subsidiaries from which they buy or to which they sell fossil fuels.
The spectacular $1 billion gain realized at the start of the war in Iran merely illustrates the reality of daily business of trading subsidiaries.

TotalEnergies is not required to disclose the list of companies from which it purchases oil and gas, except when those companies are entirely or partially state-owned. For example, we know that in 2024 Totsa purchased just over $156 million worth of oil from the Iraqi state-owned company Somo. That same year, TGP acquired more than $200 million worth of gas and LNG from Uniper, entirely owned by Berlin. But these transactions represent only a small fraction of the volumes of oil and gas traded by TotalEnergies’s subsidiaries.

The Financial Times reported how traders working for Totsa in Geneva made a $1 billion profit by managing to secure shipments of crude oil that were not stuck on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the conflict. A spectacular gain, certainly, but one that merely illustrates the daily business of these trading subsidiaries. These inherently speculative gains are, year after year, one of the group’s main sources of profit.

Strategic Locations

By delving into the annual accounts of the subsidiaries, it is possible to partially trace the flow of trading profits back to the parent company of TotalEnergies’ group, and then to its shareholders. This is illustrated in this second infographic, featuring figures for 2024 (the most recent year for which financial statements are available for all subsidiaries).

In terms of oil trading, unfortunately, we quickly hit a wall due to the location of the Totsa subsidiary in Switzerland. TotalEnergies SE’s 2024 accounts simply indicate that it made a profit of €2.3 billion that year and remitted €3.2 billion to the parent company. We do not know what tax rate it is subject to in Switzerland, nor the state of its cash flow.

However, it is possible to know a little more by examining the financial statements of a Singapore-based sub-subsidiary that manages TotalEnergies’ trading activities on the Asian continent. Entirely owned by Totsa, TotalEnergies Trading Asia made a profit of $222 million in 2024. The taxes it paid to the city-state amounted to $39 million, representing a relatively favorable tax rate of 14.9% (as a reminder, the corporate tax rate is currently 25% in France, down from 33% just a few years ago). In 2023, a more prosperous year with a reported profit of nearly $400 million, this tax rate was even lower at... 6.6%. And the year before, it was 5.3% for an after-tax profit of $458 million. Singapore effectively offers very favorable tax rates on oil revenues (10%) and LNG (5%), which likely explains TotalEnergies’ decision to establish its subsidiary there.

A pivotal role in gas operations

Regarding gas trading, with TGP, we have more information. Based in the United Kingdom—specifically in Tadworth, Surrey, just south of London—this subsidiary is subject to greater transparency requirements, and its financial statements are public. In addition to trading operations, it is also involved in some gas and electricity sales on the British market. It has branches in France, Belgium, Spain, and especially Switzerland, at the same address as Totsa in Geneva.

The Swiss branch appears to be by far the most active, judging by the corporate tax it reports paying in the country in 2024: 142 million pounds out of a total of 206 million. The remaining 64 million were paid in the United Kingdom, with Spain and France representing only a fraction. In 2024, TGP’s cumulative tax rate was 16.6% (the standard rate being 25% across the Channel). In 2022 and 2023, which were more profitable years for the subsidiary, the rate was only 9.6% and 10%, respectively. Here again, rather favorable tax conditions.

TGP’s financial statements also provide some insight into its transactions with other group entities, offering a glimpse into the internal dynamics of trade between subsidiaries. The picture remains incomplete, as TotalEnergies has taken advantage of a legal exemption allowing it to keep TGP’s transactions with other fully-owned subsidiaries confidential. However, there are significant financial flows with companies partially owned by TotalEnergies that drill for gas and run liquefaction plants around the world, such as Abu Dhabi Gas Liquefaction, Angola LNG, Ichtys LNG (Australia), Nigeria LNG, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company, and especially Yamal LNG, the French company’s megaproject in Putin’s Russia. In 2024 alone, TGP purchased £1.6 billion worth of LNG from it (€1.9 billion), and €2.4 billion worth in 2023. TGP clearly plays a pivotal role in TotalEnergies’ global gas operations.

Incidentally: in 2024, there were also significant purchases and sales, amounting to several hundred million pounds, with the Compagnie Électrique de Bretagne, which runs the Landivisiau gas-fired power plant in Finistère, suggesting either that TGP sold gas to the company and bought large quantities of electricity, or perhaps a convenience transaction involving gas stocks.

Ultimately, TGP made a profit of £1.2 billion (€1.4 billion) in 2024, compared to £2.1 billion (€2.4 billion) in 2023. In 2024 (based on 2023 profits), it paid a dividend of 2.3 billion pounds (2.8 billion euros) to its direct owners, namely other companies within the TotalEnergies group: first and foremost, 92% to another British subsidiary named TotalEnergies Gas & Power Holding UK, as well as a French company called Global LNG, and a profit-sharing fund for the group’s Swiss traders.

A Stack of Companies

Unlike Totsa, which is directly linked to the parent company TotalEnergies SE, TGP is connected to it through a chain of British and French companies, most of which have no employees. Most of its dividends therefore go to TotalEnergies Gas & Power Holding UK, which also houses other so-called downstream activities in the UK (gas sales, renewable energy, and a power plant). This company then pays roughly equivalent dividends to a third entity, Elf Petroleum UK, which also incorporates TotalEnergies’ extraction activities in the UK sector of the North Sea. Elf Petroleum then pays slightly higher dividends—€3.2 billion in 2023—to yet another company, TotalEnergies Holdings UK, which in turn passes them on to a company based in France, TotalEnergies Holdings Europe.

TotalEnergies Holdings Europe combines the profits from TGP and other UK undertakings with those generated in the rest of Europe, particularly in Norway. In 2024, it paid €7.2 billion to its shareholders—which is equal to its profit from the previous year—and generated a profit of €5.9 billion. These dividends were distributed to the three companies that control it, namely the parent company of the group,TotalEnergies SE (53%, or €3.8 billion), another direct subsidiary, TotalEnergies Holdings (30%, or €2.2 billion), and a subsidiary of the latter called Elf Exploration Production (17%, or €1.2 billion). TotalEnergies Holdings, which collects dividends from numerous subsidiaries engaged in diverse activities worldwide (including Global LNG, which was previously mentioned as a shareholder of TGP), paid a dividend of €3.5 billion to TotalEnergies SE that same year.

Ultimately, therefore, dividends from TGP gradually flow back to the parent company, where they are joined with other dividends via TotalEnergies Holdings Europe and via TotalEnergies Holdings. Why such a complex structure? It can likely be explained in part by historical factors and in part by operational and financial considerations. It also potentially allows TotalEnergies to channel profits where it is most convenient, illustrating our initial point.

Dividend remittances

Total dividend remittances from subsidiaries to TotalEnergies SE amounted to €15.2 billion in 2024—including €3.8 billion from TotalEnergies Holdings Europe, €3.5 billion from TotalEnergies Holdings, and €3.2 billion from Totsa. Dividends paid by Totsa and TGP in 2024 amounted to €6 billion, or 40% of the total. The proportion, however, varies from year to year. In 2023, the peak of the first wave of superprofits, dividends from Totsa and TGP accounted for 9.5 billion out of the 11.6 billion, or 82%, paid to the parent company! The year before, in 2022, it was 39% (3.8 billion euros out of 9.7).

In 2025, Totsa once again sent nearly 2.6 billion euros in dividends back to the parent company. TotalEnergies Holdings transferred 6.7 billion euros and TotalEnergies Holdings Europe 2.3 billion euros, but as the financial statements have not yet been published, it is not yet known how much TGP contributed that year.

A large portion of the profits generated by TotalEnergies therefore comes neither from France, nor from the “Global South,” nor from where TotalEnergies actually extracts oil and gas. It comes from offshore financial centers such as Geneva or Singapore, where speculative trading activities take place and benefit from particularly favorable tax conditions.

And, as our infographic shows, these profit transfers then go directly to the shareholders. In 2024, the French oil and gas group’s dividends and share buybacks were roughly equivalent to the dividends paid back to the parent company, which is in reality just another link in this chain of transmission.

It comes as no surprise, then, that a few weeks ago, at the same time as TotalEnergies executives announced their record first-quarter profits, they also announced a dividend increase and a doubling of the share buyback program.