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Total put on hold a 4bn investment.

Total said it would not imme­di­ately pro­ceed with its latest ven­ture, which involved tak­ing a 25 per

Total energies

cent stake in Adani New Indus­tries Ltd as part of an ambi­tious hydro­gen co-devel­op­ment with Adani Enter­prises. Total has just over $3bn of invest­ments with Adani, includ­ing in gas dis­tri­bu­tion and solar projects, which it has played down as a tiny 2.4 per cent slice of its total cap­ital com­mit­ments. Those stakes were still worth far more than Total had paid for them, Pouyanné said, des­pite an Adani share rout of $100bn since the short seller Hinden­burg Research made its alleg­a­tions. However, Pouyanné added that those busi­nesses were backed by func­tion­ing assets and were healthy, and Total has defen­ded its due dili­gence on the deals.

The uncer­tainty sur­round­ing Total’s latest invest­ment is an addi­tional blow for Adani, which has set up Adani New Indus­tries Ltd to cre­ate «the world’s largest green hydro­gen eco­sys­tem». Adani said last year that it would invest $50bn in green hydro­gen over the next dec­ade as part of a broader push by the indus­trial group to diver­sify into clean energy sources. The com­pany has been the sub­ject of fierce global cri­ti­cism for its con­tin­ued invest­ment in coal min­ing, includ­ing its con­tro­ver­sial Car­mi­chael mine in Aus­tralia. The com­pany yes­ter­day said it would increase its dividend 6.4 per cent to €2.81 per share, on top of a €1 per share spe­cial pay­out it had already announced, and said it would buy back another $2bn worth of shares in the first quarter.

Total also con­firmed a plan to spin off its explor­a­tion and pro­duc­tion busi­ness in Canada in a Toronto list­ing, adding that it would keep 30 per cent of the busi­ness and dis­trib­ute the rest of the shares to its share­hold­ers. 

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