“Excess profits”: after motorway companies, Bruno Le Maire targets refiners

The Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, questioned Thursday about the “high margins” of refining, assuring that he would take “the necessary decisions” to avoid “excessive profits” in the sector, dominated by TotalEnergies in France. “We have a question about the amount of refining margins,” Bruno Le Maire told journalists during the presentation of the macroeconomic framework of the draft budget for 2024.

“We will have the opportunity with (the Minister of Energy Transition, Editor's note) Agnès Pannier-Runacher to question the economic actors concerned on the reasons for these high margins,” he continued. “And we will take all the necessary decisions to avoid that in this area as in others, there are excessive profits made by economic actors,” added the boss of Bercy.

TotalEnergies has four refineries in France, ExxonMobil has two and Petroineos one. The minister's question comes at a time when fuel prices are rising, like oil prices around the world. This notably led TotalEnergies, which manages a third of French service stations, to promise on Tuesday to continue capping the price of its fuels at 1.99 euros per liter beyond the end of 2023, after calls from the government to solidarity".

Major retail brands have announced sales operations at cost price, which generally lowers prices by one or two cents.