Europe is still gasping for breath—TotalEnergies has dispatched personnel to Stavanger.

What Europe needs most right now isn’t another PowerPoint deck on energy transition—it’s molecules that arrive onshore before winter. TotalEnergies isn’t reiterating in Paris, ‘We value the North Sea’; instead, it has established a new position in Stavanger, Norway, dedicated specifically to frontier exploration. This move itself carries more weight than any press release. According to the *Oil & Gas Journal*, CEO Patrick Pouyanné announced this decision at the August Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) Energy Exhibition in Stavanger. While the appointee wasn’t named at the time, the location was already fixed. Speaking to camera crews, he stated: “The Norwegian continental shelf remains an exceptionally prolific basin—and we believe it still holds future potential. For Europe to avoid the next energy disruption, Norway isn’t just a spare tire; it’s the foundational reserve.” Only when viewed against the backdrop of the past four years’ supply-demand restructuring does this statement transcend mere rhetoric. Russia withdrew—and Norway and U.S. LNG filled the gap. Since 2022, Europe’s energy ledger has been rewritten. Russia’s share of pipeline gas supplied to the EU dropped from roughly 45% to about 12%. Politically, there’s no going back—and physically, reversal is slow. The vacated share didn’t vanish; it simply shifted entry points: nearby via subsea pipelines from Norway, and farther afield via U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers. Norway has pushed its pipeline export capacity to near maximum, becoming the EU’s and UK’s largest supplier of pipeline gas. According to Eurostat and the International Energy Agency (IEA), Norway now supplies over half—more than 54%—of all pipeline gas imported by the EU and UK. Pipelines deliver the ‘must-have-in-winter’ portion: stable, short-distance, and largely unaffected by canal transits or shipping schedules. Their drawback? Near-zero incremental capacity—any further growth depends on new wells, compression upgrades, or enhanced recovery from mature fields—not laying another infinitely scalable pipeline. Flexibility falls to LNG. Over recent years, Europe rapidly expanded its regasification infrastructure; terminals were built faster than pipelines. In 2025, approximately 58% of Europe’s LNG imports will come from the United States; between 2021 and 2025, U.S.-sourced LNG imports into Europe roughly tripled. Some institutions project that by 2026, U.S. LNG could meet two-thirds of Europe’s total LNG demand. Ship cargoes can be rerouted, scaled up—or even diverted between Asia and Europe in bidding wars for gas—making prices far more volatile than those for Norwegian pipeline gas. Thus, today’s European gas supply operates on a dual logic: “Norway provides the floor; the U.S. handles peak-shaving.” TotalEnergies straddles both sides—this is the real context behind its decision to add staff in Norway, not some sudden romantic fascination with fjords. TotalEnergies is no longer a passerby in Norway. Excluding state-owned Petoro, TotalEnergies ranks as Norway’s fourth-largest oil producer, averaging around 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day locally—accounting for roughly 10% of the group’s global output. For a French company, that’s no trivial share: Norway isn’t a marginal basin—it’s a material line item on the group’s financial statements. Its equity structure reveals even more about its strategy: though often a non-operator, it maintains significant influence. It holds an 8.44% stake in Johan Sverdrup—the field contributing roughly one-third of Norway’s crude oil output, effectively anchoring it to the nation’s main petroleum export artery. It owns 3.69% of Troll, plus minority stakes in nearby Oseberg; Troll remains Norway’s largest gas field, and the Troll A platform continues delivering gas from this three-decade-old field—part of which flows southward through pipelines to heat European homes each winter. In the Barents Sea, it holds an 18.4% stake in Snøhvit, corresponding to LNG volumes delivered via the Melkøya terminal near Hammerfest—volumes that can head either to Europe or, via the Northern Sea Route, to Asia.

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The U.S. will conditionally authorize Venezuela’s oil resale to Cuba: The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced it would authorize the sale of petroleum and natural gas to Cuba—provided companies ensure final delivery to Cuban citizens and private enterprises. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), under the Treasury Department, published on its website a notice authorizing the re-export of Venezuelan oil from the U.S. to the Caribbean island nation, along with detailed guidance outlining the conditions. OFAC oversees and implements economic and trade sanctions; its guidance explicitly states that authorization applies only when exports serve both Cuba’s private sector and private economic activities—including humanitarian aid. Under the licensing exceptions stipulated in the *Cuban Petroleum Export Control Regulations* (SCP), exports and re-exports of natural gas and other petroleum products to Cuban private-sector entities or individuals for personal use are eligible for authorization. The guidance also clearly excludes transactions involving—or benefiting—the Cuban military or other government agencies. Previously, after Washington announced sanctions against countries or companies attempting to export oil to Cuba, Havana plunged into crisis. Subsequently, the Castro regime—which has long grappled with a severe, decades-long economic crisis—declared its willingness to enter negotiations while simultaneously relaxing domestic fuel import controls. Thus, for the first time in nearly 70 years, this communist island permitted fuel imports via private channels. Colombia’s national oil company announces discovery of major offshore natural gas field near Venezuela: During the second week of March, a Colombian ministerial delegation met with Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, in Caracas. Both sides agreed to resume bilateral energy projects under U.S. pressure. Ricardo Roa, President of Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol, announced the discovery of an offshore natural gas field near Venezuela—a “significant” finding following the restoration of energy cooperation between the two nations. Speaking at an event, Roa described the newly discovered Copoazú-1 field—located 36 kilometers off Colombia’s Caribbean coast—as the country’s “third-most important natural gas discovery.” Meanwhile, the production volume of a deepwater oilfield recently identified jointly by Ecopetrol and Brazil’s Petrobras—situated approximately 1,000 meters beneath the seabed off Colombia’s Guajira department and adjacent Venezuelan waters—remains unclear. Last week, Colombia and Venezuela announced the resumption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) exchanges. Rodríguez confirmed that Venezuela’s first natural gas shipments had already arrived in Colombia and that plans are underway to restart a natural gas pipeline originally commissioned in 2007 but currently inactive. The U.S. government will pay nearly $1 billion to terminate an offshore wind project: The Trump administration has agreed to pay TotalEnergies approximately $928 million to divest its U.S. offshore wind projects and redirect investment toward oil and gas production—aiming to alleviate mounting energy pressures and boost fossil fuel supply. According to the *Financial Times*, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it would fully reimburse the French company for costs associated with two offshore leasehold interests, in exchange for TotalEnergies canceling these projects and pledging to invest the funds in oil-and-gas initiatives.

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