TOTAL SA (TOT) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

TOTAL SA  (TTE -0.32%)
Q4 2019 Earnings Call
Feb. 06, 2020, 5:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome, everybody, and welcome to Aberdeen. So I'd like to say that I think you've been right actually coming all of you to Aberdeen, because you'll have the opportunity today to meet with all Comm Ex-members, they are all of them in front of you, and so it will be very interesting and active day. So we'll start this morning with the presentation. This afternoon, we'll go to the subsidiary-type UK where we'll walk the talk and see and show you how we put in act actually what is being presented. Proof of concept is very important.

So let's start now. So before, actually, we do the presentation, we're going to start with a short movie about the highlights of 2019. And then Arnaud Breuillac will run you with a safety moment. So let's start with the highlights of 2019.

[Video Playing]

All right. Now, the floor is for Arnaud for the safety moment.

Arnaud Breuillac -- President, Exploration & Production

So, good morning, everybody. And today, we decided to share with you a safety incident that occurred on one of our drilling rigs. We are offshore Angola on Block 17 on 10th January of this year at 6.45 PM. And so, the rig is located on one of the Zinia Phase 2 well. And we are in a moon pool -- looking at the moon pool of the rigs, which is where the drilling riser is going down the seabed. And we have two Seadrill personnel working on a mobile platform, as you see, working on installing flexible lines to the BOPs, the blowout preventer. And the third person that you will see a bit better when I will launch the video is actually assigned to the panel controlling the platform. So, I suggest we look at the video now.

[Video Playing]

So, what happened? The personnel assigned to the panel attempted to move the platform closer to the riser. And in doing that, he operated the incorrect lever. This caused the pins that are supporting the platform to retract and the platform fell to the seabed and sank approximately 1,500 meters to the seabed. So, what actions were taken?

Immediately, all operations were stopped. We recovered the two personnel's who were on the platform. There was a general safety stand down on the rig. Full inspection of the riser from the surface to the seabed and the recovery of the platform a bit later. There was a flash report to all drilling entities issued on January 17 and a full investigation launched and a report issued on 27th of January.

The first observation is that the two person on the platform were saved by their life lines. The use of proper PPE, which is one of our golden rules, was the last safety barrier and it played it's role. The second observation is that the investigation revealed that two similar events had occured previously on Seadrill rigs working for another operator. After these previous events, an action plan was defined, including first installation of a secondary retention for the platform; and second, an isolation of the handle activating the pins retractation when platform the is in use. These actions were not implemented by Seadrill.

So, the second take away is that learning from incidents is critical and follow-up of safety improvement action is also critical. So, finally, we ask the CEO of the drilling contractor to come to our office, to our headquarters, for the debrief of the event and he committed to improve on the company's lessons learned process. Thank you.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So, good morning. Thank you, Arnaud, for his safety moment. And I would like first, of course, all of you here in Aberdeen. First time in our history that we make these results and outlook not in London or Paris, but in -- I think it was, we've done it for several purposes, because, as you can see, there are some new faces in the executive team. Not only Alexis Vovk, as President for Marketing & Services, who took over from Momar on January 1st.

But also, our CFO, Jean-Pierre, you begin to know him, and Helle as the President of Strategy. And we thought it was a good opportunity to gather together for one day, so that you have more opportunities to discuss and know them better and not only the previous members of the team. So, it's one of the objective today, which we will spend the day together in Aberdeen to have more opportunities to discuss and to interact.

The second reason why we are here is also a way for us to pay tribute to all our UK teams and subsidiary. They have done a quite remarkable work since 2017 and we decided to acquire Maersk Oil. So, you will have the opportunity also to see how we can work in action, the action on, I would say, this merger, how we derive the synergies. We have the new development as well, Culzean development is good onstream. So there's lot of things to observe, to discuss. And so, this afternoon, you will have the -- we'll come back on something which surprised a little when we decided to acquire Maersk Oil, but North Sea is part of a strength of the company. We have decided to even rejuvenate this portfolio with Culzean, with Johan Sverdrup as well part of this portfolio. And it's -- I think it's part of the reasons of the strong results we deliver today. So, it's a good opportunity for you to better understand how we can operate here in the UK and in North Sea.

So, coming back to this presentation, as an introduction, of course, as you had a chance to see -- or read the results. We faced in 2019 the weaker environment. I would say an average of 20%, 10% on crude, 40% on gas, more or less 20%. And in front of it, we managed to demonstrate once again the resilience of the company. Net adjusted results is minus 14%. Net result IFRS is almost the same. And more importantly, the cash flow delivery has been quite strong, despite this weaker environment, plus $2.5 billion. One of them is coming from the IFRS 16 rules, but the other are real cash, which of course is strong, and it's linked to, I would say, cash flow. We will come back on all the explanations.

But I would fundamentally say two things in introduction. For me, it is the result of the two pillars of the strategy since 2015. One of them is, of course, to focus all the company of delivering operational excellence. I think it's fundamental. I repeat each time, we don't know what the price will be. Volatility is strong. We don't control the price. But our first duty of all the teams around the world and the management is to deliver the most out of all the assets. And so, it's a matter of safety, it's a matter of reliability of the plants. It's a matter of cost control. And this pillar is functioning well. And for example, this year, in petrochemicals, we increased again the availability. It's part of the reason why we've managed, despite lower petrochemical margins, to maintain a good result. That's an example. We'll have others during the presentation.

And the second pillar of the strategy, it was to be -- what I say countercyclical since 2017, to be active in order to take some opportunities and, of course, this feeds the growth. And Maersk Oil were again -- were acquired at $50. First two years of execution of production for Maersk Oil in our portfolio was $72 last in 2018, $64 this year. Obviously, this help to grow the cash out of operations. And the second, I would say, emblematic acquisition we've done was the Engie assets, growing our LNG business. 2019 again is a year where all that is a combination of the Engie portfolio, plus our own, I would say, development in LNG, like Ichthys, like Yamal makes quite a stronger foot of an increase of production of almost 40% -- more than 40%, sales more than 50%. We'll come back on it.

So, I would say this strategy of being countercyclical and to play to our strengths in LNG in the North Sea, in Africa with Anadarko assets, adds some strong reserves and, I would say, puts the company in a good position. So that, I would say, the main message I want to deliver in introduction, and Jean-Pierre will come back on all the financial results.

But before to give the floor to -- so, we'll make the presentation -- we'll have seven voices today, not one, two, seven. So, lot of feet are moving. So, I'm introducing, then Helle will present macro environment, then Jean-Pierre will make the financial results, and then each head of divisions will present its own results and outlook for 2020. Arnaud for E&P; Bernard for Refining & Chemicals; Alexis for Marketing & Services; Philippe for iGRP. And I will come back to speak about, I would say, energy transition and return to shareholders as a future for the conclusion.

So, before to leave the floor to Helle, just two words about HSE. Like always, I'm taking that because it's fundamental. So, the S of HSE is safety. You've seen the safety moments. We continue to put a strong emphasis about safety. Again, I just said it's a cornerstone of all the operational excellence and we are all convinced of it. So, statistics continued to improve, 0.8 total recordable injury rate among -- in the company. So, it's an ongoing improvement. Of course, it's -- and it's good for contractors, for the staff. We are, I would say, in the middle of the pack compared to our peers. So, we can continue to improve. No way to stop that journey.

Unfortunately, I would say, we deplored four fatalities, which is not at the level of excellence we are targeting. These four fatalities were all coming from -- well, all concerning contractor staff, that's a point. They were all also -- in fact, the same cause which was four from eight, which, of course, obliged us to remobilize everybody and we put some working groups together with the contractors and how can we reach zero fatal accidents because, obviously, it's the only acceptable, I would say, target we should have. Zero fatal accidents. So, we put together work contractors, teams of Total, some decisions have been taken in terms of actions, in particular new green light after some works on site. We need to have a special green light. I hope it will improve, but it's a concern to be clear for all of us. We have really mobilized on this zero fatal accidents policy, because it's something we should eliminate. The industry is suffering too many fatal accidents, but Total is part of it.

Another -- this chart on this slide, you have an example of what we speak about when we say it's a value of high safety standards. This year was the 20-year anniversary of Erika catastrophe. And we took the example this year of shipping fleet to show you that we -- even 20 years after, we maintain the same strict policy. So, it was not just a reaction. It's still a permanent policy. So, the age -- the average age of our charter fleet is eight years, compared to a world fleet of 14. So, we keep the standards, which help us not only to have, with a modern fleet, I would say, higher safety standards, but also -- by the way, it's good for CO2, because of its reduced consumption.

This fleets is -- the newest ships are consuming less and so less emissions, which gives transition to my next slide after safety, the CO2, which is the other priority we elevated in 2019. We decided to elevate it for the staff at the same level of priority, I would say. And on each site in Total today, you should see. If you don't see, you can complain to me. But you should see on each site not only the safety statistics, but the CO2 emissions. It's a way to elevate the awareness of all the staff about it. And what we observed is that there is quite a lot of positive reaction and even enthusiasm among the teams to try to contribute to fight the CO2 emissions and to contribute directly to avert climate change. The Board of Directors decided at the beginning of the year to put this component into objectives, not only a figure, but also it's linked to the variable pay of CEO and all executives of the company. So, we motivate everybody.

We set the objective in absolute terms, which is, I would say, a challenge because we want to grow. So, we want to, on one side, is less emissions, but on the other side, it's more energy, which is, by the way, I would say, the global challenge of the world, how do we continue to deliver more energy, but less emission. So, we'll do it on our own limit, on our operated -- on the assets we control with the Scope 1 and 2 target.

We took the 2015 perimeter, 46 million tonnes. We want to be under 40 million tonnes. The results of 2019 is 41.5. So, you could tell me, the target is not ambitious. It's not true. Because if you look carefully to this slide, you can see that the dark orange perimeter, which was 2015 is declining and the emissions are declining strongly. They are at -- above -- in 2019, these are about 36 million tonnes, which means that it's a decrease of 22% of this perimeter of 2015, 22% in four years. And in 2025, this perimeter will decline to around 30 million tons decrease of more than a third of emissions.

Of course, in the meantime, we continue to develop the company. So, we acquired assets, we make some start-ups. So, there are additional emissions, on which the intensity should be, of course, absolutely controlled, which is -- you need to be sure that these additional new emissions are really minimized as much as we can. So, it's why the 46 million tonnes, we should become 40 million tonnes in absolute terms. Of course, if we can do more, we'll do more. And again, the mobilization in the company makes me optimistic about it.

In terms of intensity, you have, on the right side, you can see that the upstream emission intensity of Total is around 20 kilo CO2 per barrel, which is -- and the peers are between 22 and 35 peers beings the large -- the five key large majors. And we want to lower this CO2 intensity under 20 kilo with some of our -- in the E&P, we can see that some of our colleagues are even targeting 10, so we can do better. That's clear. And this is part of the new projects. Most are these type of standards. And so, this is the first -- this is the results. If we look to longer term, by the way, since 2005 -- in 2005, the company was -- emissions were around 80 million tonnes. So, we are today around 40 million tonnes. So, that means that, again, this matter is a permanent objective. And today it's even more a focus for company for obvious reasons.

So there are my two introduction about HSE, I would say. And now, I will leave the floor to Helle to speak about the markets.

Helle Kristoffersen -- President, Strategy & Innovation

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, everyone. I hope you can hear me all right. So, as always, we propose to frame the business presentation with just a couple of macro charts, starting with oil and oil markets. What were the highlights of 2019? And what's the outlook for 2020?

According to the most recent data from the IEA, which is shown here in the bubbles on the chart, oil demand grew by 1 million barrel per day in 2019. That number is subject to revisions as always, because we are early in the year. But in any case, it's a little lower than the three-year average, which was closer to 1.5 million barrels per day. So, good growth in 2019 for oil demand, but maybe somewhat disappointing.

On the supply side, the OPEC Plus discipline has been on aggregate good and was stepped up in December with the additional 0.5 million barrels per day cuts, as you're all aware. We call that a supportive policy from OPEC Plus. When it comes to refining, the increase in crude prices and the higher product inventory levels in OECD countries put those refining margins under pressure toward the end of the year. For 2020 now, the IEA January report forecasted a pickup in demand growth for this year to 1.2 million barrels per day. But then again, as always, this number is subject to upward and downward revisions. And right now, the markets are trying to get to grips with the impact of the virus outbreak in China.

Will it impact overall economic growth? Will there be demand disruption? I think very short-term, immediately, as we are talking, the answer is yes. No doubt. Because China is slowing down and sometimes stopping activity. But the real question is how many barrels will be lost and for how long. The markets are very nervous about these questions right now. I think, honestly, it's a little too early to say and let's just be careful not to overreact.

On the supply side, in addition to the ongoing slowdown of shale production growth out of the US, of course, geopolitical risk and instability is back on the front scene once again, notably in Iraq, also elsewhere in the Middle East and in Libya. OPEC Plus cohesion is going to be a key theme this year, including the short-term market management of the situation in China, with possible extension of the existing cuts and ongoing discussions on more cuts, corona cuts. Another key theme will be oil security, which cannot be taken for granted. For refining, we expect the beginning of the IMO regulations to be positive for distillates throughout the year.

Moving on to petrochemicals, illustrated here by the ethylene and polyethylene markets. 2019 has been a good year when it comes to demand. The annual growth looks to be in line with the longer-term 3% increased trend. Asia, in particular, is driving that growth, pulled by China and by India. On the supply side, you know that the name of the game is access to low cost feedstock and the worldwide capacities are split between ethane and naphtha crackers.

We're showing here the historical margin trend in dollars per tonnes for three US and European markets, specific segments and we've annualized the margins, because otherwise the graph would have been really hard to read. What you can see is that US ethylene margins on ethane, so monomer margins that's the orange curve to the bottom of the graph, these margins have been trending downwards since 2015 and then really come under pressure due, if I simplify, to the wave of new crackers that came onstream ahead of the related new PE units.

The integrated monomer/polymer margins on the other hand, on ethane have been faring much better and that's a lighter blue curve on the top of the chart. The darker blue curve shows the evolution of the same margin integrated monomer/polymer on naphtha, which would be more representative of Europe and Asia even if more and more crackers tend to be flexible, of course. The simple message is that monomer/polymer integration creates value and Bernard will tell you more about that, I think.

Coming to gas, and more specifically to LNG. Have a look at the bar chart here. I think they convey the main message. After 9% growth in 2018, LNG market growth accelerated in 2019 to 13%, which is above the 10% CAGR since 2015. That growth acceleration is due, of course, to the lower LNG prices and also, as a broader backdrop, to local climate policies that are in favor to gas. So, LNG is definitely confirming its role in creating more integrated and more liquid worldwide LNG and gas markets.

A lot has been said about China LNG demand. So, what are the facts for last year? You probably noted that China overtook Japan as the number one LNG importer worldwide in November and December 2019. Below the bar chart, we also show the estimated Chinese LNG import growth for the full-year of 2019. The growth is slowing down from the skyrocketing pace of the last three years -- so '16, '17 and '18 -- which is perfectly normal, but growth increase is still very strong considering the size of the imports that are now above 60 million tonnes. So, all in all, last year, there was double-digit growth for China LNG imports at around 13%. Europe was another key LNG market, of course, and I'll come to that in just a second.

For 2020, supply will continue to be plentiful. And the year is starting with continued softness in prices, so that's likely to continue to be a positive for demand. And even if the markets are focused elsewhere right now, specifically on the virus outbreak, I'd also add that the partial US-China trade deal is positive for US energy exports, among which, of course, LNG. The last chart on the European power markets. What you see here with the bar chart is the actual power generated in terawatt hours in Europe from solar and wind and gas turbines. We've shown it since 2016 with estimated data for 2019.

What's really remarkable is that the amount of electricity generated last year from gas grew more or less at the same pace as the amount of electricity generated from solar and wind. And that's remarkable simply, because the installed power capacity is expanded for renewables, but was flat for gas plants. So, in other words, the gas runs and the gas power plant load factors went up significantly in 2019 in Europe. And this is, of course, explained by the cheaper LNG, resulting from the huge pickup in LNG imports into Europe. They were up by more than 85%, owing to the amount of available regas capacity in Europe. Rising CO2 prices also contributed to creating a market arbitrage in favor of gas in several European countries, such as Spain, Italy or Germany.

So, in summary, 2019 saw really tremendous gas demand creation related to power generation in Europe, and it triggered a clear upside for those market players that are integrated on the gas power plant value chain, which Philippe will comment a little later. For 2020, the gas power plant outlook remains positive with more countries accelerating the switch away from coal. Spain is continuing on the trend from last year and the Netherlands are joining in. And then, of course, the increased penetration of renewables will continue to require reliable base load capacity in Europe at a time when the French nuclear production has been somewhat shaky and at a time when Germany is continuing its planned decommissioning of nuclear reactors.

That's all I wanted to say as a global framing. And now, Jean-Pierre, I hand over to you. Thank you.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, everyone. As shown by Helle, our industries faced with volatility in commodity prices and margin. And the consequence is very clear. We have to keep the discipline. And at Total, I think we are relentless in our efforts to cuts costs, to reduce the breakeven and to high grade our portfolio. And clearly, this is with constant pressure to execute and deliver that is reflected in our track record of superior performance, compared to our peers.

Despite a weaker environment in 2019, compared to 2018 -- so, of course I will come back later -- today we announced very strong results and growing cash flow. And once again, I think with these figures, we've demonstrated our ability to consistently deliver at the highest level among our peers.

So, let's move to the -- one of the key metric, cash flow. So, you know the environment was weaker in 2019, compared to '18. Oil and gas prices on average were down by about 20% and gas prices over the same period were down by about 10%. Despite this less favorable environment, we increased cash flow by about $2 billion, so that means 8%, to more than $26 billion. And another very interesting or very remarkable element is that all segments performed well in this cash flow generation. For 2019, Total is best-in-class as the only IOC able to increase its cash flow.

For upstream, high quality volume growth more than offset these weaker commodity prices. E&P is the largest contributor, up 1% for the year to $18 billion. But iGRP is the fastest growing segment with an impressive 8% growth to $3.7 billion. And, of course, it's a reflection of the 60% increase in LNG sales last year. Downstream continues to deliver strong cash flow from its diversified portfolio. And despite the 10% decrease in refinery margin and petrochemical margins, the results were stable -- or the cash flow story was stable at $6.6 billion for the year.

Cash flow allocation was delivered in line with guidance. We invested $17.4 billion, taking into account the $4.1 billion of net M&A, net acquisition. Of course, we closed the Mozambique LNG deal in September, and it's part of this net $4.1 billion of net acquisition. And as you see, we returned $9.2 billion in 2019 to our shareholders, $7.5 billion through dividends and $1.75 billion through buybacks. As you know, we consider that controlling the breakeven is at the heart of our sustainability. And '19 -- in the last year, we continued to reduce the breakeven and we drove the organic pre-dividend breakeven below $25 per barrel.

So, let's move to the results. So, Total is continuing to deliver strong results across all segments. The decrease in adjusted net income was limited to 13%, demonstrating the resilience of our portfolio in a weaker environment. Adjusted net income was $11.8 billion for the year and return on equity remained above 10% at 10.4%, that means the highest among our peers. In the upstream, E&P generated $7.5 billion, down 12% compared to 2018. This reflects, of course, the 10% drop in Brent and the 40% fall in gas prices, and this drop was partially offset by production growth and, of course, the efforts we have done on our costs. iGRP was stable year-over-year, thanks to the strong increase I mentioned already in our LNG sales, around 60%.

Our downstream sector resisted well, reflecting the advantage of our diversified low breakeven asset base, it generated $4.7 billion of adjusted net income, that mean a decrease of 7%, compared to 2018. RC, Refining & Chemicals, net operating result was at $3.0 billion, in line with the lower margin. And Marketing & Services once again continue to contribute significantly to the downstream net operating income at $1.7 billion.

So, as mentioned in my introduction, we're keeping constant pressure on opex. You see here the significant progress we have made on cost reduction fronts throughout the Group, compared to the 2014 basis, the cost saving in 2019 was $4.7 billion and we target more than $5 billion in 2020. And now, we are setting a new target for 2023 to reduce costs by an additional $1 billion. This is a companywide effort. All the segments contributed to this effort, even if the majority of the cost saving came and will continue to come from the upstream.

As you know, we improved efficiency across the Group. We have simplified our process and our organization. Leading the way is the Total global procurement, which have achieved already more than $900 million in savings. And the main driver for these cost saving is, of course, the centralization of the purchases. So, from an average of 15% of procurement centralized in 2015, we're now -- last year, in 2019, we are above 30% and we target 40% in 2020. Digitalization and robotics, artificial intelligence will be, of course, the next wave of efficiency and will contribute to lower our costs and to structurally improve profitability. But, of course, we are at the beginning of the journey, and so we are in Aberdeen and through this afternoon, you will see some digital realization made by our E&P subsidiaries.

So, I'll focus on upstream performance in 2019. So, upstream delivered outstanding performance last year. Brent was down by 10%. NBP, so the European gas prices, decreased by close to 40%. So, on average, I would say prices were down by about 20%. And despite this environment, the cash flow increased by more than 9%, compared to the previous year. And this means that the 9% increase in volumes more than offsetted the weaker environment. Upstream cash flow growth was driven by high cash margin production -- so, what we call the big four, so I mean the two LNG projects, one in Australia, so Ichthys, the second in Russia, Yamal, plus the twp deep offshore projects we have in Nigeria and in Angola, so I mean, Egina and Kaombo projects. So these big four projects contributed around $4 billion of cash flow in 2019.

In addition, of course, we benefited from 2018 value-creating acquisition. Patrick mentioned that in his introduction. So, the acquisition -- the Maersk Oil acquisition, the renewal of the Abu Dhabi offshore licenses, and these acquisitions are generating cash flow per barrel that are above the portfolio average. And of course, we benefited as well from the pressure on costs and execution of synergies that drove opex per barrel from $5.7 per barrel in 2018 to $4 -- sorry -- to $5.4 per barrel in 2019. As a result, the net effect was an increase in the 2019 upstream cash margin, despite once again this downturn environment. And Arnaud will come back on that in his presentation.

So, now the downstream. The downstream cash flow performance has been strong, consistent, despite once again the challenging environments. ASC margins fell by about 10% last year, and were particularly weak during the last quarter. Still, the downstream delivered $6.6 billion of cash flow, remarkably stable given the volatile markets. And Total, once again, generated the highest downstream ROCE among IOCs. We have a diversified portfolio of low breakeven, high-quality assets.

Refining, Chemicals and Marketing are well balanced within the portfolio, providing cash flow from different products and markets. Marketing and specialty chemicals are not linked to the oil cycle and, of course, this adds stability to the cash flow. Bernaud and Alexis are here to expand on this subject later. And so, they will comment, in particularly, of the monomer/polymer integration that we have developed on our integrated platform. And Alexis will come back on the expansion of marketing and services in the fast-growing new markets.

Maintaining a strong balance sheet is a priority for the Group. This provides us with a solid foundation, allowing us to weather cyclical lows and, of course, with the financial flexibility to seize opportunities. And we are doing that very successfully, very recently. It was in Africa, with the Mozambique LNG deal, with the Anadarko, two years ago in the North Sea with the Maersk Oil acquisition. Our objective is to maintain gearing below 20%. We show here a Total gearing on the left, including the impact of the leases. And so, taken into account the impact of the leases, the gearing end of 2019 was at 20.7%.

With the implementation of the IFRS 16, as you know, the rules are not the same between European and US companies, regarding the treatment of the leases in the accounts. So, we presented, at the right, in the middle of the slide, I would say, a benchmark against our peers, excluding the impact of the leases. And we are very transparent that, for Total, the impact of the leases is 4% gearing. So, that means that excluding the leases, the gearing is below 17%.

A few comments regarding impairments. In 2019, we recorded $500 million of impairments. For our calculation, we use a long-term price trajectory that is in line with IEA SDS scenario. So, I would say, the 2-degree scenario. And that converts toward $50 per barrel by 2050. This relatively limited amount of impairment as compared to peers, reflects the resilience of our portfolio. I notice that most of the impairment done by our peers are clearly in line or linked to the exposure to US non-conventional assets. And as you know, our exposure to these kind of assets is very low at Total. So, for me, it's a validation of our strategy to play on our strength, and to try to act countercyclically.

So, the summary of the execution in 2019. We reported a strong sets of results, once again, delivering on the targets we set for the year. Capex, we are in line. We are on track with the asset sales. So, we recorded $1.9 billion of asset sale last year, and we announced an additional $1 billion. So, we are on track to deliver the $5 billion targets over the 2019-2020 period. Cost reduction target was achieved at $4.7 billion, and we outperformed on opex per barrel. Arnaud will comment that later on.

Upstream production growth and downstream cash flow are in line, and we are ahead of schedule on share buyback. I remind you that we bought back the equivalent of $1.5 billion -- sorry -- yes, $1.5 billion in 2018. And this year, it was $1.75 billion. So if you add up the two years, you have this $3.25 billion of buyback. We achieved our targets because we maintained discipline on cost, we maintained discipline on capital allocation and, of course, we added major new start-ups and value-accretive acquisition to an already robust portfolio.

We are predictable. And more than that, we are reliable. That's the illustration you can see on the right hand side of the slides. Adjusting from volume growth and using the sensitivities we provide to you, our result has been at or above the expected level.

And finally, let's have a look at our performance relative to our peers. And I am pleased to show, once again, that we outperformed our peers across several key metrics. Total was the most resilient in terms of net income. Total is the only major that increased operating cash flow in the significantly weaker environment in 2019. This reflects, once again, the advantage of our low-opex, of our success in migrating the portfolio, with high-quality production growth,

Group ROCE is best-in-class, around 10%, and return on equity at 10.4% is the highest among our peers. The conclusion for me is very clear. 2019 expands our solid track record of consistent delivery, and performance in executing and delivering our strategy.

And I leave the floor to Arnaud.

Arnaud Breuillac -- President, Exploration & Production

So, let's start with a reminder that Total upstream strategy is to build on our strengths, and to focus on the value other than volume. In order to implement this strategy, first, we must take the most value out of existing assets. We do this by delivering operational excellence and, of course, this starts with safety, which is a core value of Total and as was mentioned by Patrick, the cornerstone of operational excellence. We are also actively reducing Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions on our operating perimeter, with the objective to reduce by 15% by 2025 compared to 2015. This objective is ambitious as it is expressed in absolute terms, while we're growing the Company and our upstream production. Finally, we maintain a strong focus on availability of our wells and facilities, and on cost discipline to leverage our low-cost competitive advantage.

For new projects, we focus primarily on our core areas, Africa, Middle East and North Sea, and bidding up on our technical expertise in deepwater and LNG. 2019 was a good example of this strategy in action. In Africa, with the acquisition of Mozambique LNG; in Angola, with the extension of Block 17; in the North Sea, with Culzean, and Johan Sverdrup start-up; in deepwater, with Egina and Kaombo Sul start-up; with the FID of Mero 2 in Brazil in deepwater; and also in LNG with the FID of Arctic LNG 2 and Mozambique LNG. Finally for exploration and acquisition of new resources, we focus on prolific basins, and manage our portfolio of assets proactively to lower the breakeven and rationalize our geographical footprint.

In 2019, we have continued to deliver a strong production growth with 9% increase compared to 2018. This growth was essentially due to new start-ups in 2019 such as Kaombo, Culzean and Johan Sverdrup and a ramp-up to plateau of our new field started in 2018 like Egina, Ichthys or Yamal LNG. As was already mentioned in 2019, our LNG production has increased by more than 40% and we are benefiting also from low decline, thanks to a significant share of new fields in our portfolio, and long plateau production from LNG projects or in the Middle East oil fields in Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

In 2020, our production will grow by 2% to 4% with new field started by the end of last year, like Tempa Rossa or Iara P-68 FPSO, developing Berbigao and Sururu field in Brazil, but also new start-up again in Brazil with the second FPSO on the Iara block developing Atapu. Overall, we are on target to deliver 5% production growth between 2018 and 2021.

Together with production, E&P cash flows, this is E&P new perimeter, has grown substantially since 2016. This year's growth is about 1%, which is a solid performance in the lower price environment. It was due to the contribution of a high-cash margin asset start-up, such as Egina and Kaombo. As shown on the right part of the slide, the cash margins of new projects started in '18 and '19 are above $30 per boe in a $60 per barrel environment.

One of our competitive advantage, year-after-year, has been our consistent discipline on opex, with $5.4 per boe achieved in 2019, decreasing from $5.7 per boe in 2018. And we should maintain this performance in 2020, thanks to approximately $250 million per year of synergies from Maersk Oil. This is a new target, which has been revised up from more than $30 million last year to $250 million this year, but also by leveraging on our global purchasing entity, which has delivered significant savings ahead of plan as presented by Jean-Pierre. This afternoon, we will give you some examples and more details about the synergies here in the UK. And as a reminder, we are targeting $5 per boe in the next two, three years.

On reserve replacement, our track record is very strong, and has been consistently better than our peers, with 124% for the five-year average and 157% in 2019 with large gas projects launched such as Mozambique LNG or Arctic LNG 2. This reserve replacement rate level is a solid performance, given the fact that we have grown our production by 8% in 2018, and 9% in 2019. As you can see from the right part of the slide, we have approximately 20 years of proved and probable reserves and with around 60% of gas.

Now, to illustrate our capacity to capture promising exploration acreage, I have taken two recent examples with our entry in Block 58 in Surinam just before the Mako-1 light oil and gas condensate discovery, which is on trend to the prolific Exxon-operated Stabroek golden block in Guyana, with 8 billion barrel of oil discovered. Mako-1 has found 123 meter of net pay, and there are three additional prospects to drill in that Block 58, one being drilled as we speak. The acquisition cost in case of development will be around $2 per barrel, mainly the carry of Apache during the development phase, quickly reimbursed on the cost oil after start-up. And we will operate this block. We are also a partner in two or three very promising prospects to be drilled in Guyana this year.

My second example is in Brazil, another key area for the Group, with assets in production and development, and where we have been successfully the E&P 16 last bidding round in October 2019, and captured one of the largest remaining block with two world-class prospects, due to be drilled by the end of 2020, early 2021 in the prolific Campos pre-salt oil basins, and Total will operate this block as well.

Finally, this slide provides a list of main projects already sanctioned in 2018 and 2019 or to be sanctioned in the next two years. All these projects are profitable, with an internal rate of return greater than 15% at $50 per boe, and will represent a cumulative production of more than 800,000 barrel per day by 2023. Once again, we demonstrate that we deliver. By end 2019, we already launched half of these projects, including Arctic LNG 2, Mozambique LNG and Mero 2. All these projects are benefiting from attractive market conditions, following the downturn, as well as simplified design and ways of working.

The geographical spread gives a good measure of the quality and resilience of our pipeline of projects that will fuel our profitable growth in the coming years. Consistent with our strategy, the majority of these projects are LNG or deepwater. To recap, I hope that these few slides have given you good visibility on the profitability of the upstream segment.

And I now, hand over to my colleague Bernard, who will speak about Refining & Chemicals.

Bernard Pinatel -- President, Refining & Chemicals

Thank you, Arnaud. Good morning. Let's now move to Refining & Chemicals. So, you certainly remember that refining chemical strategy is built along three pillars. The first one is, of course, along the integration, which is really the backbone of Refining & Chemical branch. So, it means that we want to focus most of our capital allocation and development on our six large integrated platforms worldwide, with a target of having more than 70% of our capital employed on this platform by 2025. And, of course, we keep working as it was said earlier on the operation excellence what we control. Notably, all the cost along the energy efficiency.

The second pillar is to grow and to grow in petrochemicals, not in refining. We want to grow in petrochemicals, because there is -- this is a growing market and we want to catch this growth. With petrochemical, we target our produce from gas, as you know, because gas is a low-cost feedstock. And we also want to be balanced in our capacity between monomers and polymers by being integrated. And we'll come back on this one. And the third pillar is, of course, to invest in low-carbon solutions. By that, I mean all the bio-based solutions, bio-fuels, bio-polymers, and we also want to be proactive in the field of plastic recycling with the ambition to have 30% of recycled polymer by 2030. All of this will translate into an additional CFFO of $1.5 billion by 2025, and of course, a return on capital employed above 20%.

So now, let's move on to 2019 achievement. You see on the right hand side that we have been able to deliver $4 billion of CFFO, despite a weaker environment, as it was said, in refining and petrochemicals. And you see also that we have been able to maintain a return on capital employed above 25%, which is a best-in-class. So, what I would like to show you is, how we did it by looking at the three pillars of our strategy, how each of these pillars contributed to these results. If you look on the left hand side, you have Antwerp, which is one of our larger integrated platform.

And I think it's a good example of how we have played the integration between refining and chemicals. We completed in 2017 a very large investment program, $1.3 billion, to upgrade the platform, to reduce the production of high-sulfur fuel oil, increase the production of low-sulfur distillate, and also being able to increase the flexibility of our crackers to allow them to crack more low-cost feedstock, such as ethane, or refinery of Grant, which used to be burnt as fuel gas. And you see that this has proven to be very, I would say, contributive because this complex generated last year $750 million of cash flow from operations, with a very good utilization rate.

And I also would like to mention that we launched, last year, construction with five other players from the Antwerp harbor to develop a carbon capture and storage project, which will contribute, of course, to consolidate the platform for the future. So, integrated platform, of course, is a strong contributor, but not only petrochemicals also plays its part in the cash flow generation. You see so that we want to grow, and I will come back on the four projects on the left hand side. But what I would like to start with are the two charts on the right, which really demonstrates how we stick to the two principles, I just mentioned in the strategy. First, which is to take advantage of low-cost feedstocks. And you see that, in 2019, we have been able to leverage or to benefit from this low-cost feedstock, because today the feed slate is close to 60%. So, we will grab a benefit of this low-cost feedstock.

And you see also, on the monomer and polymer integration, that we have a very balanced profile. We have close to 6 million tonnes of monomer, and pretty well-balanced with 6 million tonnes of polymers. And by playing this integration, we're able to capture the margin all along the value chain regardless of the cycles. So, in 2019, we have moved forward on the four large projects, which you know, which all by the way stick to these two principles.

The first milestone, we achieved in 2019, has been in Korea, with the expansion of the cracker. You know we are now able to crack 40% more, and that's all US propane. So, cheap propane imported from the US, which we crack now in Daesan in Korea. And, of course, in this project, we also have downwards derivatives, a PE line we are just in the phase of starting up now, and a PP pipeline, which we will start-up in 2021.

The next milestone will be in 2021 in the US. We will start-up our large project in Port Arthur where we have -- we are making good progress in cracker and also polymers. And we are also making good progress on the last two projects, which are now in the FEED phase; in Jubail with our partner Aramco, and in Algeria with our partner Sonatrach.

Third pillar is the low-carbon solutions. You see that we dedicate 10% of our capex to this field. So, we want to invest in three areas. As I said, the bio-based solutions, the plastic recycling, and the CO2 emission reduction. They are just a few example. The start-up of La Mede, our first biorefinery last year in August, the start-up of our first bioplastic plant in Thailand, producing biopolymers made out of sugarcane. We have been very active in the field of plastic recycling through acquisition, with a company producing recycled polypropylene for the car industry, but also through partnership with large brand owners, like Mars and Nestle, to develop chemical recycling. And we have been also active in the field of CO2 emission reduction, of course, through our energy efficiency program in our operations, but also by developing green H2 projects, one in La Mede in France, and one in Germany in Leuna.

So, I'm going to stop here, and hand over now to Alexis for Marketing & Services. Thank you.

Alexis Vovk -- President, Marketing & Services

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Bernard. To begin with, I would like to give you a quick reminder of the three pillars in Marketing & Services strategy. The first one is that we are growing our retail market, our retail network in large growing markets, such as China, India, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Angola. We anticipate the oil demand to remain strong in these markets, which represent actually 25% of the world demand. We aim to have more than 4,000 stations there in 2025, which will then represent 20% of our station worldwide.

Secondly, we are building on our existing retail networks, to develop non-fuel sales to increase value. In Europe, we'll continue increasing our non-fuel revenue in shops and food, and we are extending our offers of services in cards, fleet management and mobility. This non-fuel part of our business is due to represent 40% of our cash flow from operation in retail in Europe by 2025. In Africa, we are the leader in fuel retail. And this is important, we actually have the biggest retail networks in the continent, whatever the business. So, we're planning to further grow, targeting a market share of 18% and leverage on the size of our retail assets to develop non-fuel revenues to a growing African middle class.

Thirdly, Marketing & Services has its role to play in the strategy of the Group to grow in low-carbon businesses, by providing state-of-the-art solution to our clients in mobility in alternative fuels, namely grow -- serving the growing EV charging business. Our target is to have 150,000 charge points operated in Europe by 2025. And in addition, we're taking the advantage of the development of natural gas in road transportation by building an extensive network of NGV stations in Europe, with a target of 500 stations by 2025. In the USA, we already have a good position with our 25% share in clean energy, the US leader with 500 service stations there. We're also pre-empting the breakthrough in marine and transportation that LNG is making, by extending our customer portfolio and building strong position in the supply chain, in the key hubs on the maritime routes between Europe and Asia.

Lastly, we are looking at hydrogen. We were -- we have been an early supporter of that gas, especially in Germany and in France, enabling us to closely monitor this energy solution. This three-fold strategy of capturing growth in dynamic geographies, developing non-fuel retail and proactively building a strong offer in low-carbon mobility, will contribute to keep on delivering added value for the Group in the coming years. We are committing to delivering an additional $100 million cash flow from operation every year until 2025.

So now, I would like to take you through what we have achieved in these three areas in 2019, and what is unfolding in 2020 and beyond.On the -- first of all, and let me take you to the right side of the slide. Marketing & Services exceeded its target of cash flow from operations in 2019, generating $2.5 billion of cash flows, therefore, more than delivering on our objective of plus $100 million per year on average, with a strong contribution from retail, but also from our high-value lubricants and specialties.

In addition to Europe and Africa, where our retail operation was strong, the first pillar of our strategy is to expand in the large fast-growing markets I have mentioned earlier. We have now started operation in Brazil, with 300 stations operating after the acquisition of the Zema group. Brazil is not only a large market for retail, but also the second largest bio-fuel market. So, growing our market share there would contribute to lowering the carbon intensity of our global sales.

In Mexico, we are pursuing our development strategy and have now more than 200 Total branded stations operating. And in Saudi Arabia, the JV we have setup with Saudi Aramco has completed the acquisition of a retail network of 300 stations, and you will see the first Total and Aramco branded station in the second half of the year. When you add up all those figures, you can see that we already have 1,000 stations in these markets at the end of 2019. Operation have actually started in Angola last month, and we will start in India later in 2020. We are clearly, therefore, in line with our target of 4,000 Total service station in these key markets by 2025.

The second pillar is to increase non-fuel revenue. Fuel demand, obviously, will not evolve in the same way in all markets, and we see our retail stations as a platform for services, and we intend to leverage them to expand sales of non-fuel products, which are independent of oil cycles. This is particularly true for Europe. In 2019, you see on the right that, we grew our retail cash flow from operation by more than $50 million in Europe. And the non-fuel part -- non-fuel share grew faster, and was in excess of one-third in total, therefore, in line with the objective of reaching 40% in five years.

To keep that momentum in the competitive and dynamic retail environment, from 2020, the customer experience in our Total [Indecipherable] shop will be enhanced with the roll-out of our new shop concept, the mobility concept -- you see actually a picture in front of you -- that will boost the value we capture from our clients. But our retail operation also benefited from strong and growing revenues coming from fleet management and mobility services. We are innovating in new technologies, to expand fleet management services worldwide.

For example, in 2020, Total will be qualified to collect toll fees in Germany. This accreditation is part of the development of our toll solution in Europe for heavy goods vehicle, which will eventually enable trucks to cross Europe with the same onboard unit that we market. Those B2B needs of fleet management are also fast growing in other markets, and we acquired a full online fleet card solution in 2019 to support our expansion outside Europe, in particular in Africa. Our strategy is to internalize this core business, in order to create value around mobility as we are doing it in Europe.

Another part of our non-fuel strategy is to accelerate the development of Total Wash sales. We actually currently have more than 2,000 car wash facilities in Europe, that are actually mostly in our retail stations, and this is a very good margin business. To further create value as our Total brand -- Total Wash brand is very well known, we decided to go beyond our retail assets and launched our premium stand-alone wash offer in 2019. This first Total Wash center without fuel distribution, located in France is autonomous, and electricity is by solarization and hard water recycling. In addition, we're also moving in car parks, developing our premium hand wash offer there. With these examples and realization, you can see that how we are leveraging our existing sites to expand and diversify our sources of cash flow.

And the third pillar, growing in low-carbon solutions. Definitely energy transition is happening, though, at varying paces around the world, and Total is already active in many alternative sectors. To illustrate that we're a real player in that transition, we are allocating 10% of Marketing & Services capex to low-carbon businesses or solutions, and there are mainly around three businesses. The first one is marine fuels. As part of Total strategy, along the integrated gas value chain and to capture opportunities opened by the new International maritime organization, we are developing clean marine fuels. We recently announced the signing of a second major agreement for LNG supply of new container ships for CMA CGM to be located in the Mediterranean. Along with other existing agreements, our portfolio now represents in excess of 0.6 million tonnes per year.

Additionally, in an effort to promote the use of LNG fuel in shipping, the Group is making -- is ramping up its logistical facilities in the major supply hubs, therefore, building a global network of bunker LNG logistics. That is, our first LNG supply ship, will be operating in Rotterdam later in Q2. And earlier last year, we announced contract for certain LNG bunker vessel to be delivered in 2021 to be positioned in Singapore. The third one to be located the same year in Marseille, and we are working on putting one in the Gulf as well. So, I'm happy to report that, with all that put in place, we will start our first LNG bunker deliveries in 2020.

We are -- second part is, we are developing top tier position in electro-mobility, by leveraging on three things. Our strong footprint in retail network, obviously, but also in car dealerships, and that is possible thanks to our lubricant business, and through our fleet card customers, who are requesting multi-energy solutions. The number of charging points we're operating grew by 40% in 2019 to 16,000, and we aim to carry on growing at the same rates at the same pace this year to reach 23,000 in 2020. You must have read recently that we were awarded the largest European concession contract for EV charging points. We will install and operate up to 20,000 charging points in the area in the metro-pol region of Amsterdam. We are, therefore, moving nicely toward our ambition to operate 150,000 points -- charging points in Europe by 2025, and to become a major player in electric mobility business.

To complete that electric part of the business, in addition, we -- in 2019, we started our first super-charging points in service station and we will roll-out 60 station equipped with those super-fast charging point, that means more than 150 kilowatts by the end of 2020 in Europe. This is part of the future phase of our service station and confirms our ambition to offer super-charging solution obviously in urban centers, but also every 150 kilometers in Western Europe. We also see a business opportunity in developing natural gas for road transportation. This is clearly the case in Europe where we have now a network of more than 200 NGV station, NGV being compressed natural gas and also LNG, on track with a target of 500 in 2025.

As part of this strategy, in 2019, we expanded our partnership in India, with the Adani Group, to contribute to the development of the Indian natural gas market. We should open with the first Total. So we should open the first Total CNG station later in the year, which is the first step to having more than 1,500 in 10 years.

I would like to mention that we are looking at increasing the bio-gas penetration in our natural gas sales. As an example, today, more than one-third of the gas delivered by clean energy in the US is bio-gas, and we are putting plans to develop that in other markets, too. And last, I would like to mention that in hydrogen, Total has been an early supporter of hydrogen in Germany, being part of the H2 Mobility joint venture. And today, 25% -- more than 25% of the hydrogen public station in Germany on the Total network will also have some public station in the Netherlands, in Belgium, whereas in France, we are looking more at captive fleets, and with private customers.

As a conclusion, I have shown you that we are delivering on all the three pillars of our strategy. And then Marketing & Services is positioning itself well for the future, while being a significant and sustainable source of cash flows for the Group.

I thank you for your attention, and I give the floor to Philippe for the last part of the presentation.

Philippe Sauquet -- President, Gas, Renewables & Power

Thank you. Thank you, Alexis. Let's turn now to iGRP, iGRP being as a, you are aware, the segment where we are chasing actively all the opportunities arising what --from what we call the energy transition. It is not the only sector, and Alexis has shown in particular what MS was also, in fact, going after in term of new business opportunity as well. But in iGRP, we focus on growth opportunities, mainly in the three areas that you know, global LNG being based on the gas growth that we see rising from a sustainable scenario that developed more and more across the world, opportunities arising from electricity, especially in Europe, where in fact we know the market, and we have the opportunity to go downstream gas electricity value chain, all the way to end-user customers. And last but not least, is the renewables. The renewable being worldwide, that is growth energy market that we are also pursuing. And of course, the history of iGRP is not only for growth of volume of energy. This is for history of growing the cash flows. And I remind you about the ambition, the target that we have ascribed to this sector, growing the cash flow from operation by $3.5 billion over the next six years. We are investing significant amount of money, $1.5 billion to $2 billion in low electricity -- low-carbon electricity business.

So, turning to cash and to result. We can say that 2019 was a good achievement in term of our target in an environment that was clearly not really favorable, especially in term of gas pricing environment. We managed to increase significantly the cash flow by some 75% from $2.1 billion up to $3.7 billion. And this was the result of the long-term stable cash flow that we have in upstream LNG where we are benefiting from long plateau and all the project that you know in Qatar and Nigeria are delivering year-after-year their share of this cash flow. And of course, we add the new projects like Ichthys and Yamal, which started last year and contributed, of course, EBITDA to this growth.

Sector is becoming more and more important in the group, and now it's 15% of the group cash flow that is generated in this sector. We were around -- slightly beyond below 10% last year. And the growth came from -- mainly from LNG. We had also positive contribution of low-carbon electricity. Next year, we anticipate again growth, everything being equal in term of pricing environment. We aim at generating roughly 5% more, accounting for the fact that we don't have any significant new start-ups in the LNG upstream apart from Cameron. Cameron, we started the production of train one in 2019. We started the second train early January. And we are targeting to launch -- to start up the third train middle of this year. But apart from Cameron, no new significant start-up.

Integrated LNG. So, as I said, this is generating most of the increase of the cash flows. This is coming clearly from the growth of the volumes, volume that we produce, volume that we are selling. And you see the -- what we call our LNG portfolio growth on this chart where we increased our volume by 60% between 2018 and 2019. We anticipate to continue also this growth in 2020. And the growth will come from the supply from our JVs where we have equity, which are, in fact, continuing to go to their plateau, but it will come mainly from the growth of our US portfolio.

We are becoming the largest exporter of US LNG. So, we are making a massive bet on low prices for the long term in the US, and we will benefit from the volume next year coming from additional project, 25 of Sabine, which started last year, but will be 100% running in 2020, and also Freeport, the contractor. But we -- I should say, we bought from Toshiba because as you are aware, we received 800 money -- $800 million last year to accept, to take this contract.

In term of cash, as you see, plus 70%, plus $1.5 billion. So, an impressive growth and we have to notice those very strong contribution of Yamal. Yamal, I know that most of you have visited the site, which is impressive in term of physical operation. It's also very impressive in term of cash flow generation. And it contributed nicely to this growth.

Russia, overall, if you add the contribution of Novatek, is contributing now nicely to the overall cash flow of the group here, close to $1.5 billion that is generated from Russia.

Long-term, once again, our strategy in LNG is not about growth for growth but growth for profits. And this growth for profit is really based on very simple parameters.

The first one is that we want to build a portfolio of the most competitive sources of supply. And this is why you have seen us very active in the main rich gas-producing countries such as Middle East, Russia, Australia, US and more recently, Africa, of course, with our acquisition of Mozambique LNG.

And we want also to position ourselves on the main LNG markets, so Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and of course, the big giants such as China and India where we anticipate dramatic growth but will continue over the next years due to the need for them to go from coal to gas. And this -- of course, when you consider the size of the population, the size of the needs of both those countries, which are more continental countries, will drive dramatic growth in the gas market in the LNG.

So, we think that we are well positioned to benefit from this growth. We consider that this growth will remain profitable. Of course, there is a question of supply demand balance, and we have seen maybe too much FIDs taken in 2019. We could anticipate, but it's up to you to have judgment on that, but the low-price environment could discourage the number of projects, that is clearly our hope. And we, on our side, we are not ready to take FIDs on project that we -- which we think will not deliver the appropriate economy of scale and cost structure. But of course, it's a competitive market, and we are used to have volatility in those kind of environment.

In term of gas markets, we don't want to forget about Europe. And when we bought portfolio of Engie, this came with a very significant share of the regasification capacity in Europe. And you could question the interest of this regas capacity for market, which is not, of course, anticipated to be the high-growth gas market of the world, but we've seen the interest of the European market at time when the market in Asia can be volatile. We know that we have Europe as a safety net. And a lot of cargoes came to -- LNG cargo came to Europe last year, and we could take advantage of our regas capacity.

Having built this global portfolio, so we benefit clearly of economies of scale, but we also benefit of optimization opportunities, coping with volatility of the demand and coping also with the opportunities of avoiding unnecessary shipping costs. And as we have already commented, we are generating nice profit from this optimization.

Turning now to the integrated electricity value chain in Europe. So, we have both three segments ahead of you where we are growing. CCGTs, of course, and Patrick commented that we are very happy to see the growth of the dispatch of CCGT that we bought over the last years. We have the opportunities to both a discounted price, balanced CCGTs at a time when the CO2 price was too low to push for a coal-to-gas switch in Europe. But now we have seen with the combination of the CO2 price growing all the way to EUR26 per tonne, and we can anticipate that it's not over. We have seen this coal-to-gas switch very strongly calling for higher dispatch of CCGT. And in term of cash, CCGTs generated decent interest in cash, especially when you consider the low prices of acquisition. In renewables, so growth story worldwide, a growth story also in Europe, and we nearly doubled the portfolio of generating assets in 2019 and getting good growth mainly from organic growth, which is delivering toward significant profit.

And in marketing, we continue our digital model, which allows us to disrupt the historical monopoly, the historical incumbents and especially in France and Belgium where we have decent market share already. And we managed to grow our power customers portfolio by 500,000 last year. So, the growth is still there, and we are also generating profit. Overall, all three segments delivered roughly $200 million of cash flow from operation in 2019.

Renewables worldwide, to complete my presentation. So, it's clearly the area where we see the higher growth among all the energy market. We have to be careful about having a disciplined strategy in order to generate profitable growth strategy and which is, of course, what we are aiming at. And now we can say that we are -- we have now very efficient, very well-trained teams that we acquired, that we trained with Total Quadran, Total Eren, and now Total Solar starting to contribute.

We try to focus on organic growth in order to generate once again the maximum value, acquiring also pipeline as early stage as possible. We cannot limit ourselves to a very early stage, but this is the intent. And this is giving us the opportunity to generate more value by derisking the project, which mean securing the land, securing the permits, negotiating PPAs, negotiating EPCs, negotiating nonrecourse financing and with favorable condition, all subject that are familiar in a company such as Total.

And once we have developed the project, derisk it, we use what we call the farm-down to sell part of the equity in order to ensure that we have a double-digit return on those investment. We had several example of this implementation in 2019 of this service model, Total Quadran in Europe.

Qatar is also a new example of a large success that we announced earlier in Jan, with an 800-megawatt project that will be a landmark for the group in Qatar, another landmark in this country that we like a lot and where we generate a lot of profit.

You will have noticed that we have also announced a 2.1-gigawatt deal with Adani. As you know, we have been partnering with Adani in gas, in marketing and services. And we are building the relationship with Adani, which is a very dynamic group and allowing us to benefit from the opportunities of this, once again, country continental, which is India, and be prepared to hear from acquisition also of additional portfolio. We think that we can secure nice acquisition and generate value.

We don't forget about storage. As you are aware, intermittent renewables are growing a lot, but the more we are growing in the energy mix, the more we have to cope with the intermittency. And storage -- space storage for stationary use is called to grow.

What we intend, of course, is to make this opportunity a profitable opportunity. And we learn from, I would say, the mistake or the experience of the past in the solar panel and solar cells and for battery, for what we call ESS. We were adamant that we were willing to develop this activity only with a low-cost base in China.

And why China? Because the Chinese are very good at developing mass production at a very low cost. And we managed to partner with Tianneng this year, which is bringing us brand-new plants, very automated, 4-gigawatt hour of capacity, which is much more what we had in Saft so far. But we can combine the unique knowhow of Saft in term of technology and with the mass production basis that we'll have in China. And that will allow us, of course, to serve the Chinese market but also the international market.

Later on, we had the opportunity, and also you've seen the announcement, to launch interesting, I would say, venture with PSA. And the idea is to take advantage of the willingness of Europe to develop very quickly EV, manufacturing EV cells in Europe, electric vehicles.

And we had the opportunity to partner with PSA in order to develop a European production project. It's clear that we would not have done that if we wouldn't have strong partners and strong customers with PSA. And we wouldn't have done that have we not had a very strong support of the authorities. And strong support meaning not words, but real subsidies. And this is why we have decided to start this project. There will be, of course, a lot of further steps to validate in order to scale up the project up to its objective of 2030 48-gigawatt hour of equivalent of 1 million vehicle, 10% of the European market. But we have started the first phase for a very limited amount of equity, I can tell you.

And we continue to generate decent cash flow from Saft, $100 million in 2019. And what we can conclude is that we are in good shape in order to pursue the growth that we have started some two, three years ago when we created iGRP and regrouping now as a sector inside iGRP, generating growth, generating cash flow with the goal of being more and more visible in the renewable segment as well but on a profitable basis and delivering the target that we have of 25 gigawatt, so the equivalent of 25 nuclear plant, more or less, in 2025.

And now, I will leave the floor to Patrick to conclude.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

You had an extensive review of all the segments by my colleagues. And so now just to sort of seeing for the future, I will come back -- of course, I commented to you to, I come back with climate and the strategy that we deliver in the coming years, the objective being, of course, to demonstrate to you and to convince you that not only we can be strong on our results, but at the same time we have to prepare the future and the future is partly linked to the evolution of our markets in the energy field.

So, if you look at this slide, there's no change. And you know the conclusions that we draw from this slide. We have to adapt our company to the evolution of the energy markets. We are in a 2-degree world, and more and more society is claiming to go toward this world. The oil consumption could decline, which means that there is plenty of supplies, which will put pressure on prices at 2040 horizon, which means that we focus all projects with low breakeven.

On the contrary, natural gas should find growth in this mix at the expense of coal. And so we continue to expand our position in the gas value chain, like it was explained by Philippe.

Renewables is growing and economy is electrified. So that's why we want to develop a profitable and sizable low-carbon electricity business. And last but not least, if we want to be in a carbon-neutral world, we'll have to invest in carbon-neutral technologies and businesses, and I will come back on it.

So, we have set an ambition, which is summarizing this -- our strategy, which is summarized in this chart. This is the result of the strategy among the four pillars I just described, which is to reduce the carbon intensity of our energy product we saw, used by our customers.

Of course, this is not like Scope 1 and 2. Scope 1 and 2, we are in control. Scope 3, which is underlying this slide, we are not in control. This is the society, the demand. We are not car manufacturers. We are not plane factory manufacturers. We are not in the cement industry. So, we deliver energy. But this -- the demand will be influenced obviously by the evolution of each segments of the demand. People do not consume oil because we produce oil. They consume oil because there are processes, there are vehicles, there are planes, ships, which are using all.

So this, of course -- but we can contribute to this evolution of the society demand. And of course, we have an ambition, which is to decrease this carbon intensity by 15% by 2030. And beyond it, let's say, up to 40% by 2040.

Just a remark, the slope of this decrease is aligned on a 2-degree scenario. Of course, the -- obviously, the absolute number of a carbon intensity of oil and gas and power company, of an energy company is higher than the average of society, but the slope of decrease is in line with what the society expects.

But it's not only words because we walk the talk. And in fact, in the last four years since we implemented the strategy, we have already decreased by 6% this carbon intensity. It's a lot of efforts. It's a result of our strategy in natural gas, multiplying the LNG sales by 3, $15 billion have been spent.

Electricity sales, of course, is more in 2015, so multiply it by 4 -- by 8. It's again more than $5 billion being invested in low-carbon electricity. But this 6% is, honestly, among the major company, by far the highest achievement. Two of our companies are communicating about Scope 3 in the earning -- among the IOCs. One has set a target of 3% by 2020, and the other one is today at 100% by 2018, did not decrease yet.

So, we walk the talk, and I think it's important to underline in the context and the global debate the society and the pressure it's putting on all the energy fields.

What is the way to move forward? And I think, again, it's not only about emissions, even if acting on emissions is fundamental, it's back to Scope 1 and 2. It's also acting on products and acting on demand. These are the key levers we want to live -- we want to put into action in order to reach our objective.

What does that mean? That means that we should not speak about oil, gas. We should speak about liquids and gases. We can decarbonize oil by blending oil with biofuels. There is no new activity which will be developed. Biojets for planes in many countries is under scrutiny. And we have obviously a role to play to provide these new, I would say, liquids, which will allow planes to continue to transport the passengers around the world with lower carbon products.

We can also decarbonize natural gas by blending it with green gas, with hydrogen, with biomethane. We can easily put into natural gas European networks, around 10% of hydrogen. It's a way to -- again, to contribute to the global ambition.

So, acting on products is a way to do it. Acting on demand, of course, is another action. Oil, we consider that we should try to substitute to all the low-carbon products whenever it's possible. For example, producing power with fuel oil is not the best way to use oil to produce power. There are other ways, natural gas or renewables. So, we envisage to stop selling fuel oil for power generation. It's a concrete -- would be a concrete contribution to this society demand.

And of course, on natural gas, we should promote gas use. It was described by Alexis on LNG bunkering. When we invest in India in natural gas, it's a bet because, of course, there, coal is the only natural resource and it's less expensive than natural gas. But it's also a way to help that country to transition and to get -- of course, we are looking for profit from a growing market. And in petrochemicals, when we substitute ethane to naphtha, it's also a way to contribute to this lowest carbon society that we are aiming for.

Emissions are also very important. Acting on emissions has been described by Arnaud for liquids, for oil. Methane is obviously a real -- is a key topic for -- when we speak about natural gas. It's not only among our own operations where we have -- again, we target less than 0.2% of methane emissions, but it's along the chain where we are to be steward because there are some leakage which could appear even in city gas. So, we have to steward the full value chain in terms of promoting natural gas for controlling methane emissions.

On the electrons, I would say, on the power, investing in the electric mobility value chain is a clear access for the company. There are two good examples in the last months. There's JV for batteries, there's charging stations concession in the Netherlands, you will see us quite active.

Investing in electric mobility value chain is also a way, again, to contribute to lower the carbon intensity of the energy we sell to our customers like developing storage solutions. We spoke about -- Philippe spoke about batteries. We spoke about hydrogen as well.

So, more we will be involved in renewables and more the question mark about generating hydrogen from peak solar farms is a matter of being able to store energy. And I think it's another axis of development to create value from these investments in renewables in the future.

Carbon sinks is the fourth pillar of all these actions. It's not a matter of compensation at all. It's a matter of making investments, betting on the fact that carbon pricing will come step by step. In Europe, it is there, around the world. And then these investments will become quite profitable. We begin to -- I've lost -- I'm losing my screen here. We are beginning to invest in natural-based solutions for projects in Peru for Amazonia Forest. It's not only a matter by doing or planting trees. It's a matter of investing in social investments in the communities to avoid to deforest, I would say, and to give them some economic activities.

So, Total will become a shareholder of a chocolate plant there in order to make the full story and to have a sustainable solution for these carbon -- natural carbon things.

It's also CCUS. We are in a country today, and I think this afternoon you will have opportunity to ask questions, where they are quite serious in the North Sea. I'm convinced that North Sea could become a sort of new area, a new business opportunity, which is the US. We are embarked in a project in Norway with Equinor and Shell, here, in two projects. Again, they can come back on it.

And we have -- Bernard mentioned that we take the lead of a new CCUS project in the Antwerp industrial area where many heavy industries are emitting CO2s, trying to combine that with some depleted fields, mature fields in the Dutch North Sea.

So, there is a lot of things to be invested there. Again, we allocated $100 million per year. And last but not least, we have to promote innovation. And we put in place a carbon-neutrality venture fund where we have allotted $400 million by 2023.

Of course, all the strategy requires investments. So, we are reiterating in front of you this guideline, $16 billion, $18 billion over the next -- over the 2019-2023 period. So, no change.

We spent in 2019, $17.4 billion, as explained by Jean-Pierre, a little under the $18 billion we gave as a guideline after the Anadarko acquisition. We acquired, by the way, 4 billion barrels of around $2.4 per barrel. So, it's -- and you've seen the positive impact on the renewal of resource. And for 2020, same guideline that we gave in September, $18 billion of capital investments, including acquisition, less disposals.

On the disposal side, we set a program of $5 billion after the Anadarko acquisition. We have already sold or announced around $3 billion. So, we are well under way. And there's a program, you probably know that, for example, we put on sale Bonga in Nigeria, it's public. And we have other work projects on which we work in order to fill that program.

So, it's a strong commitment from the company. In fact, we are targeting to sell more than that because we know that execution of sales is always sometimes could take time in our industry.

Another remark on this slide is that when you look to the program of the 2019, 2020, you can see that what we call low-carbon capex contributing to LNG, to low-carbon electricity represent and -- but also the actions taken in Refining & Chemicals about biofuels or in Marketing & Services, like it was described by Alexis, about charging points and batteries, etc., represent more than 30% of investments of the company, globally speaking.

So, it's -- the strategy is really in action. And this is a condition if again we want to adapt the company to the evolution of the energy markets and contribute to lower the carbon intensity of the energy we sell to our customers.

But at the same time, we play to our strengths. And this is combining this ambition to play to our strengths. And I think here, today, we are in North Sea, so we'll have the opportunity this afternoon again to discuss about it. But just a word about Africa. Africa represent $10 billion of cash flow from operations out of the $26 billion announced by Jean-Pierre. So, it's a big part of the company. We have made some strong move, of course, this year. We're starting up Kaombo and Egina but also accessing to more resources.

Mozambique LNG was a jewel of the Anadarko, I would say, portfolio in agreement with Occi. We already closed it in a record way, by the way. So now we are in command of these large projects. It's not only a project for today, it's a large base of resource for many years. And I would say, in the LNG field, Total, between our Arctic position in Russia, between Mozambique, between the US projects we have in our end, not only the next wave and growth for '25 -- 2025, 2030, but beyond. And it's a matter now of being able to execute all these projects.

But it's also -- we have also secured, you've seen end of the year, maybe to come back in Angola, which is a core country for our group, Block 17 extensions, a golden block, you have 3 billion barrels. You have one which have been produced, 1 billion is still there in front of us.

So, it's a nice way to extend this license, this golden license. But we have also -- find an agreement with Senegal to develop two discoveries. It's around 350 million, 400 million barrels, which can be -- of oil, which can be developed in Block 20/21.

So, consolidating, again, on our strength in Angola on deepwater is the best way to create more value. You notice that we finalized all the agreements on Libya with the Waha entry. And exploration, of course, in Africa, with the discovery in South Africa, which will be appraised this year from key wells that are to come.

But also Africa for us a country where we put into action our strategy in natural gas and demand and renewables. This year, the teams have been able to have access to a new regas terminal in Benin, and we work on Ivory Coast.

We also have announced that we are working on Maputo LNG in Mozambique because it's a large country, Mozambique, from north to south, and bringing gas to customers in Maputo but also potentially exporting natural gas for pipeline to South Africa could become also a profitable way to add value from this acquisition in Mozambique. And renewables, we begin to develop in South Africa, in Kenya, in Egypt, some projects.

Last but not least, of course, as it was reminded by Alexis, we have our presence in more than 40 countries for our networks, which also drive around a little less than $1 billion of cash flow every year and growing ones.

So, this is, I think, a perfect demonstration of our strategy, which is to play to our strengths and to continue to build, to develop, to create value for our shareholders.

So, that's the result of all these strategies. So again, this year, pleased with the $26.1 billion to increase to $28.5 billion of debt-adjusted cash flow. I remind that $1 billion is coming just from the IFRS 16, so forget this one, but the rest is real cash, which will allow us to increase the return to our shareholders. And at $60, we confirm for 2020 that we'll have another $1 billion and for the years to come in quite a progressive way. It's coming again from the start-ups, the big 4, which have generated more than $3.5 billion, Egina, Ichthys, Kaombo, Yamal, but also from the downstream.

And we have a sensitivity for next year of $3.3 billion for $10 per barrel of liquid realized price. So, it's -- we were $3.2 billion, $3.3 billion, the increase is just because we produce a little more. And for the gas sensitivity, around $350 billion for $1 of million BTu of NBP, only on the share of the gas production, which is linked to NBP.

So, cash flow allocation. This scheme does not change. The shape is changing, but the content is still the same. And so, we are consistent on it. We allocated cash. Capital investment, the discipline is there, $16 billion, $18 billion. $18 billion next year, like this year, but this is the guideline we gave you.

As a dividend, we announced 5% to 6% increase in September, doubling from a 3% increase, so from 3% to 5%, 6%. The last two quarterly dividends were increased by 6%. And so, as a result, for the full year 2019 dividend, as the first two quarterly interim dividends were at 3%, it results at around 5%. So, consistent growth is OK, walking the talk, as I would say.

And the balance sheet gearing, again, it's the third priority for us. Because in the volatile environment, we consider this -- we need absolutely to have this low gearing, under 20%. The IFRS 16 increased by 4%, so it's just an accounting issue.

The acquisition, of course, has also stretched a little bit with the Mozambique acquisition. But we are committed to come back into 20% as soon as possible and quickly, and to maintain a Grade A rating.

And the last part of this allocation are the share buybacks when we have more cash. So, we have announced in 2018 a program of $5 billion. We've done $3.25 billion. We -- for 2020 at $60, as we said it, by the way, in 2018, we can deliver $2 billion. And so, this -- we will execute this program of buyback -- of share buyback.

A word about ESG. We have a lot of questions from investors about what do you do in ESG? I think, again, there, Total has a strong commitment. We are recognized by the Global Compact as one of the lead company in the last 2 years. We made some -- we, there, again, walk the talk, I would say, in transparency on environment. In the year, we issued our climate report. We also assessed all our industry association memberships about the climate stance of each of them, and we decided to exit one of them. But also advocating, in the US, for example, to maintain and to not relaxing the methane regulations because I think it's very important that we reach toward for these natural gas products that we -- on which we base part of our growth.

And so, as part of ESG, I would underline what mix, gender diversity is becoming, is a reality in the company. The Executive Committee is leading by example, and the Board of Directors also.

And in governance, I would just underline, again, through actions that which have been taken, through initiatives that only -- the link between climate CO2 reduction targets and variable pay, but also we have adhered to some responsible and sustainable tax principles with the B Team, which means no aggressive fiscal policies in the company.

And we are also acting and taking the lead on zero tolerance against corruption around the world. I'm sharing myself the part -- the initiative of the World Economy Forum on anti-corruption. It's a matter of level playing field for large corporations like Total. This is recognized by some rating agencies, like CDP, where we have the A-managed grade, which is the best score among the oil and gas majors.

So, in terms of delivering shareholder return policy, just to make some advertising for us. We made not only the 2-year TSR but the 1-year TSR, the 3-year TSR. Number 1, our 2-year TSR, around 10%; Number two on one-year and three years, so we are honest. So, we can say that we are really, today, offering to shareholders a good return, best-in-class TSR, and I think it should be also underlined.

So, to conclude this presentation, which was maybe a little long, but seven voices is longer than two voices. I think, again, the message are clear. We are working on delivering first. This is a priority for the whole company. And we should never forget, but of course, we work to keep our future in the energy field. But at the same time, what we have first is delivering, and this is a condition, I would say, for gaining the right, having the right to invest for the future.

So, growing the cash flows, reducing creation of the breakeven under $25, discipline on opex and capex. We execute this strategy by high-grading the portfolio and launching profitable projects on the Upstream; developing LNG position and delivering cash flow from it; but the Downstream also, we've, I would say, focused growth area are petrochemicals and ore refining and some large markets, emerging markets for marketing; and on both sides, by the way, contribution to the low-carbon emission of the group, which is also important. The electric mobility will become a reality in Europe, so we have to adapt ourselves. And continuing to seize all the opportunities in the emerging markets, including in low-carbon electricity.

And we do that, of course, and by increasing the shareholder return. This is our commitment. I would say today, we have announced something quite at the same time, our two or three opportunities. Two of them, I would say or three of them, which are symbolic of what we do.

On one side these results which are, again, I consider are resilient and strong and increasing cash flows and shareholder returns despite the weak environment -- weaker environment. And there is another press release, which is our investment in India on solar. I would like, by the way, to thank Namita, because this is a group of -- it's not only a matter when we work on solar, we don't only work select teams, but we leverage all the knowledge around the table. And Namita, for this reason, has been the key driver of these investments in renewables and managing this partnership with Adani Group. So, thank you, Namita, for that.

It's the way we work together, like Momar is working and still advising us on Africa, I would say, in order to leverage the maximum of competencies around the table for the future of the group. And I think these two press release for me are quite a symbol of what we can, at the same time, be good at delivery, and both deliver also of being part of the energy transition and increase the cash returns of shareholders.

Some people are asking question, "Can you do both? Working on energy transition, increasing cash returns to shareholders?" I think it's not at all mutually exclusive, and this is exactly what we want to demonstrate, and we are demonstrating to you.

And this is, by the way, the conditions of a sustainable return to the shareholders to target for the long term.

So, thank you for your attention. And now, we'll be ready to answer your questions after this presentation.

Questions and Answers:

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

Michele, start, please.

Michele Vigna -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Thank you and congratulations on a strong set of results against the backdrop of quite a difficult macro. I have two questions. The first one relates to the LNG market. As Helle highlighted, it was a strong year of growth from a demand perspective, 13%. Some of it came from low gas prices and stronger affordability. And one of the key questions long-term is, if we want a strong growth in the market, prices probably need to remain relatively low. But then, at the same time, we need new supply. And at the time of fewer long-term contracts, that could be difficult under volatile and low gas prices.

So, how do you think about a good long-term gas price to both incentivize demand, but also add decent profitability? And how do you compare it with the minimum gas price that you need to achieve a good hurdle rate in your new projects?

And then if I could ask also a second question. When you think about your business in the past, you had to run it mainly for financial budget. But today, you also have affected your carbon budget to look after. And when you think about implementing it, how -- what is the best way to do it? Is it through higher hurdle rates in your new oil investment? Or is it, for instance, by applying a carbon price, including Scope 3, in your new investments?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

First, LNG. I think it's interesting. I think, again, it's -- for me, natural gas is competing with coal, not with oil. So, this relationship is, historic relationship that we should target as sort of oil equivalent is wrong. We have to be -- if we want the project to be resilient, we are more looking to -- I mean, the equivalent of 11% of Brent, if you want, however, 13%, 14%.

So, when you test the project, you have to keep resilient assumptions. By the way, the assumption for natural gas are around $6 per million BTU long-term. Why we take, say, $70, I mean, we are prudent on all natural gas assumption. Why? Because we think that this market is really going to decommoditize more short term, more supports.

I think the idea that you have a long-term contract, of course, we -- and by the way, which was the beauty of the Mozambique LNG projects, that the teams of Anadarko have done an incredible work to be able to find 10 million tonnes of long-term contracts. We have a good relationship to all, by the way, so we will benefit of it. But we have to be pragmatic for the future of the next project, we have to be able to market it.

And this is why we implement this strategy described by Philippe, which is to be -- if we'll be more trading market, so you need to have the logistics. And so, you have to have regards, to have the customers, to have the fleet, and if we want to be able to move and to maximize the value out of this business.

So yes, which means that also oil, which I strongly believe. The capacity to take the risk to launch projects will rely upon a few companies with a strong balance sheet, able to face this market. Which is exactly why we think that this is a perfect market for a company like Total, and why we developed this strategy.

So, yes, be prudent on the long-term gas price when you sanction your projects, that's obvious. Otherwise, you could have some fit, which means also that, again, in -- I think things would change. But in the US market, obviously, where you have this low environment project which are promoted today by, I would say, utilities. When utilities start, where you think you can make the money and another will take the risks, the downstream risk, taking the offtake risk as a limitation.

I think this has -- I would not be surprised to see a less or a slowdown there, because we're always ready to take this risk for several years, being sure to have 10% return, like a utility, ones the others are taking always. I'm not ready to take that.

That's why we integrate on Cameron, and we are discussing the business model with Sempra. That will be the next phase of Cameron because, obviously, we should align the risk and rewards on such projects. Otherwise, there's something wrong.

So, we can't take the risk. And I think, again, the competencies of the teams, the logistics, it's investments in logistics picture. You can't -- trading is a matter of optimizing logistics, fundamentally.

And so, I think -- and that's why also we put together, by the way, we moved all the trading team of natural gas from London to Geneva. It's not because of Brexit, it's because of the competence. We think clearly these -- and the fact that they are all there together, it's quite impressive. In a huge room, I can tell you, they deliver already synergies between both teams working together. So, this have been geographically well planned in order for maximizing and learning from each other. So, I think that is there for a company like Total, source of added value for the future.

Coming back on oil. Yes, we put, by the way, a carbon price. We put $40 per ton, now $40 per ton in all the projects systematically. Is it enough? We can increase it. Honestly, I will tell you, the reality is that $40 per ton, it impacts your project by, let's say, 0.5% of IRR.

Does it change the decision? No. Because either the fundamentals of your old projects are strong in terms of cost per barrel, in terms of technical cost and in terms of breakeven or it does not work. What it will influence is, obviously, are very long-term projects, where you will have been not able to keep $40 but to increase it. And it's back for me to oil sands, again, where we will not invest in oil sands.

Does it eliminate the project? No, because the project is more short-term projects. You know when we invest in exploration in Suriname, which I hope will be a success, I mean, we will explore doing that. The time of exploration is something six, seven, eight years, let's say, then you produce most of it in 10 years. So it's a matter of 15, 18 years, in fact. So, in fact, you can't capture this value in an environment, and I can tell you, we continue to have oil in 15 years in this world for quite a lot of consumption.

So, I think it's, again, for me, it's a matter for selecting the right place and being stringent. We continue to approve our projects at $50 per barrel, because this could come. This could come lower and pressure on the price. And this is the conditions for being able to maintain investments in oil projects.

But there's still -- so we are still at oil, a little bit clear. I mean, I don't -- even if it's maybe not oil, as I said, it's liquids, which means a new blending of oil and biofuels are different. But we'll need liquids. You will not be able to drive the plane longer than 1,000 miles without liquids. It's a question of storage. It's a question of -- so let's work on this type of approach.

Unidentified Participant -- -- Analyst

Just two questions, if I may, as well. The first one on renewables, where I think you've grown your own capacity already quite fast, with more plans to come. And I wonder, for that future growth, what is the constraint? Is it capital? Or is it opportunities now that you've been around the world a few times, dealing with easy and difficult partners?

And the second question, hopefully, is a quick one. I wonder whether, perhaps Jean-Pierre could translate the $18 billion all-in capex figure into something that's comparable with, I think, again, which was a very impressive $13 billion organic capex number for 2019?

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

14.

Unidentified Participant -- -- Analyst

Close enough.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Translated. Nice job. The first one, let me be clear, on renewables, first, we keep the discipline. We want the budget return on all the projects return. The Indian project, the Indian investment we just announced, $500 million is more than 13 -- is 13, I'd say, OK, just to give you an idea. And we keep it on systematically.

The business model has to be -- and we can do it. Of course, it took us time to understand. When we win in Qatar off our contenders. The reality is we have more contenders. We have different competitors there, with utilities, new players. So, this is a different field but we keep the discipline, and we can do it. Then we are not limited by financing today, no. We are limited by the opportunities. Why? Because you have a lot of competition, and when bidding honestly stops.

But -- and this is -- we have teams, as we said, but we have many in France. So, it's an ecosystem. We have the subsidiary Total, we have the SunPower, we have the Total Solar. We let them develop. But it's a matter of increasing competencies, again. Because these projects take time. A renewable project is not -- it's easy to execute, very different. This 800-megawatt solar farm in Qatar will be into production for half of it in one year.

So, the competence you need to have is more people able to commercial, so supply chain control is very important. So now we have developed that expertise to be able to put together what are the best Chinese producers for sales in order to mobilize them.

But the larger the project will be, the more we are comfortable. Offshore wind, obviously, is a field where we look at it, even if it's more capital-intensive. We are targeting for floating offshore wind. With wind, by the way, Arnaud's teams, I want the exploration, the production and E&P, engineers quite motivated, by the way, because we know what is the floating unit. We have done that. So, we can leverage this expertise and we think that, again, by the way, in renewables, don't forget that we'll see the same evolution like in LNG.

I'm convinced that with renewable business we'll not be regulating business for so long, it will become a merchant business in many countries. And then the capacity to be able to sign PPAs on the long-term, you need the balance sheet, you need the counterpart.

It's a business where we can also leverage part of what is strong in our company. So, there are things there where we can really deliver for the future. Of course, we need to grow, because we know we speak about gigawatts, but a gigawatt is nothing. A gigawatt of solar, it's -- I always translate that in 1,000 barrels per day, 2,000 or 3,000 barrels per day of oil. So, we have people who think giga is big. No, it's not big.

So, we have to be realistic. If we want to be a serious player, we will have to go and to invest, that's clear. But keeping, again, a double-digit return. And so, it's a matter of growing the teams, growing the competency, differentiating -- I mean, adding -- again, growing the ecosystem, different JVs on different countries. Because you have a point, it's more local business.

You don't develop -- the Indian market, it's not the same with what you can do in the Middle East or in France. That's not true.

So, you have also to have local teams and local competencies. But again, we've done that in Marketing & Services, so being local. So, it's -- I think there is ways to find a profitable growth. And again, when I look to what the society is asking to us, we can do it. My commitment, our commitment to the shareholders is that it should, at the end, grow the returns, the cash flows and the part. And I think it will be a fruit of the sustainability of our dividends and share return to shareholders in the future.

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

Irene?

Irene Himona -- Societe Generale -- Analyst

Thank you. Irene Himona, Societe Generale. And congratulations on that set of figures that sets you quite apart from the two industry leaders. I have three questions. Firstly, can you please clarify the terms of your deal with Apache in Suriname? Secondly, your production guidance for this year between 2% and 4% depending on Anadarko, obviously, you've closed Mozambique. It seems to have stalled. So, what happens next, and is there any time limit? And then finally, on opex. I think Jean-Pierre highlighted the benefits of centralizing procurement. But the rate of that appears to be quite slow. I mean, we went from 15% to 30% in about four or five years. So, is there any particular obstacle to speeding that up, speeding the pace up? Thank you.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I will let Arnaud -- but no, the central procurement team has been established in 2017. So, I know life is -- so it's quicker than -- Arnaud will come back on it with. Maybe Namita as well, she's in charge of this team. You can take the question to Namita on procurement.

And I would say, first, Apache. Apache's deal is quite clear. I mean it's quite simple. We pay $100 million upfront to have access to the exploration license. And then we will carry Apache for -- seems to be a big amount, but it's a short-term financing because we will recover all the carry from the cost oil of Apache. And if, of course, that is not enough, we have a system to have access to more of the share.

So, it's a -- we use our balance sheet. I would say, on Apache, I think, for me, it's a perfect example. It's a company with a limited competence in Deepwater and limited balance sheet. They came to find a partner. We offer the competence in Deepwater. We become operator. And we offer the balance sheet.

And so. we offered them, in fact, at the end, as we said in the release, this is a big amount of carry. But when we translate that in dollars per barrel, it's around $2 per barrel of cost of acquisition. And to be clear, when we made the deal, we had already the results in front of us of the well. And so, it was not a pure exploration acquisition, we knew that this first -- we could look -- we had the data in front of us. So, we knew that there was some hydrocarbons and probably more to come because this first well has been stopped because of a pressure at a certain horizon.

As we know, there is more under but the architecture of the well was not strong enough to support a deepening of the well. So, it's clearly something where we have leveraged two of the strength of the company in order to have access to something which could become, I hope with this exploration. So again, touch wood, leave at that.

We could have access to a very interesting license in the trend of all the discoveries in Guyana.

Anadarko, let's be clear, very clear where are we with where are we. So, Mozambique is closed. It was a joint decision. Joint decision with Occi and us to close the Mozambique as quick as possible. It was our interest because it's project going on, FID. So, embarking, being on-board was a priority.

What I think about it is it's a good financial condition which we acquired Mozambique, seems very competitive. We have just closed South Africa last week, and that's small deal, which is done.

In Algeria, the debate today is between -- the authorities have said to Occi that the change of control from Anadarko to Occi can be pre-empted by them.

Again, by the way, the fact that we -- Algerian authorities have operational right, we knew it. And we respect the laws in a country where we are. So, it's not a matter of the transaction between Occi and TOTAL, it's Anadarko, Occi, which saw, I would say, Occi is dealing with the Algerian authorities. We are there, and we expect the deal, but if it's pre-empted, it's pre-empted. And so, I think we'll have clarity, but you probably noticed that in three months, there have been three changes of CEO in Sonatrach, so which does not help, which is the momentum of the discussions, but we'll -- we are there to answer to Algerian authority.

And in Ghana, I would say, there is a fiscal discussion. We and Occi consider as its return, that there is a tax stability clause in the contract. Again, Ghana, Occi seems to find a way to -- want quite a big capital gain tax. This discussion is going on. Let's discuss, I mean, that's -- again, it's a matter of convincing people that -- what is right. Honestly, by the way, and I say that positively for Mozambique, if we have been able to close, then it's a very good signal to me about Mozambique is that the governance of the country is quite -- despite what I hear, I can tell you, we send the deal, beginning of August and one week after we have the right calculation of capital gain tax, no dispute, no complications, smart way to work.

And we -- very smoothly, we managed to close in a record way in two months -- less than two months, which is good. When you invest quite a lot of money in the country, it was a positive signal to us and to -- and the way we have been welcome, but these processes can be sometimes tricky. We have experienced, in some countries, Uganda and Ghana. But let's work. So of course, as you know, I think Occidental wants to close as quick as possible. We are there, but we want to do it in the good conditions to be done, OK?

That's the situation on these deals, and -- but we are very aligned that -- with Occidental, that the way forward. So it's why we put, by the way, on the production because we don't know exactly when it will come. And so, and if it will come. So if at the end does not come, obviously, we'll not have a production. But at the same time, we'll have -- we'll not have made the investment. Sorry, Namita to answer to centralization of procurement.

Namita Shah -- President People and Social Responsibility

So we put together TGP in September of 2017, the 2.5-year results, we are over $900 million in savings. Our target over two years was $1 billion. So we are going fast, I would say. Jean-Pierre talked to you about centralization, which our target is 40%. We should be able to move this year. But what he didn't talk about is we have about 30% of our procurement, which we put in a category that we call piloted.

And piloted means, essentially, we look at everything that's happening globally and we put together contracts that we negotiate with large suppliers that the negotiated prices, that then gives the option for different affiliates to use those base contracts to then do their own procurement. But it's very piloted, and that there is another source where we will be driving down costs. So I'd say don't just look at what we put in centralization, which is purely managed in France, where we do all the work from A to Z in France, but we also do a lot of piloting, where we make sure that we're aligning our policies and our prices across the world.

Christyan Malek -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Christyan Malek from JPMorgan. Thank you for a lot of great information and detail on energy transition and what you're planning to do. One thing -- because it sound quite theoretical, and I might confuse you with the question, but you mentioned we're making this point across the challenge around trying to deliver energy, but lower carbon energy. And within that context, demand will be bifurcated in terms of how we can solve for that demand of energy in the context of low versus high carbon.

And when I think about breaking up demand and thinking about Africa as an area, which is consuming energy and low cost energy, and when your place in Africa being a very large part of your portfolio from a cash flow perspective. What I'm trying to grapple with is the challenge of you generating low carbon energy in the continent, which is screaming for low cost energy. And the dilemma in that in terms of solving for, particularly as you go through Scope 3 -- and I hope I haven't lost you at this point.

And how do you see your portfolio fit in terms of exposed to Africa as you sold for that and being able to do what you've done in India, which will be able to actually generate renewables as part of the LNG challenge? But equally, in a continent, where you're very exposed to, which is almost going the other way in terms of looking for even lower cost energy, which is not conducive to non-oil, but actually more conducive to oil.

So sort of a question, but also a comment. It's much more long term. I'm just trying to understand how you think the strategy around the portfolio in that context. And the second question is thinking about M&A, and you talked -- you've done some great deals in the past, M&A is clearly opportunistic, but also has to work from a returns perspective. Anadarko, some great transactions there. As you think about M&A going forward, will it be oil or non-oil? What's top of mind in terms of being able to deliver? And if it's non-oil, how big would you be willing to go on non-oil and gas, I mean?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Two strategic questions. You take the first one, Helle, in about Africa or do you want me to answer?

Helle Kristoffersen -- President, Strategy and Innovation

No. I mean, I think we can maybe take this off-line because it's a long question. I would say, Africa, like, many other places, we'll have to rely on as diverse an energy mix is possible. I think there is room for all energies in Africa. The roadblock for Africa today, you can make a long story very short, is simply the electricity grid. And we are building renewable power plants, as Patrick shown in one of the charts. But of course, in many African countries, the grid is not reliable. So it doesn't help to just add more renewables.

In some countries, it works well. In others, it doesn't. Some countries have hydro, others don't. Again, if I super summarize, a big opportunity, but also fight is indeed to displace coal for those countries that either have coal or have existing coal plants and are importing coal, which is back to Patrick's point on cheaper coal versus cleaner gas. And so we're working on that. We mentioned the win in Vienna, the lead we have in the Ivory Coast or in Mozambique. And that is for sure a big deal. And you know that the easiest way to reduce emissions short-term is to substitute coal and gas. We can take all the details off-line, if you want.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

But you know what, in all these countries, based on what I observed like in India, like in South Africa, I don't know why, but each time we have the same answer, it's $5 per million BTU.

Christyan Malek -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

$5?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

And with $5, you find a way. Above $5, I don't know why, but almost the same answer. In South Africa, I discussed recently and India, same figure. So it's that -- the reality for us is that we need to continue to drive down the cost of projection and logistics of natural gas. This is a clear condition. And this is where -- it's our duty. If we are able, I say, to Philippe -- I was in India, if you are able to deliver our long-term contracts with fixed price of $5, I would sign plenty of natural gas. But this is where our mission is somewhere, and even for Africa and Vienna was a good example. Ivory Coast, why do we spent three years on Ivory Coast? Because at the end, this is the -- there was a competition, again, a coal fired power plant and a gas fire, and because this, you're right, the access to energy is just fundamental things.

And on renewables, I think, today, it's not doing as quick as possible because there is a lack of regulation, a lack of land management. Owning the land, it's just a question who owns the land, so it's complex. So it's growing much slower than expected in Africa because people have the confusion between access to energy from few solar lamps in the village and the real industrial capacity, which is a 50 megawatts or 100 megawatts or 200 megawatts. And that's clear. In our business model, if you make only -- like we do in Kenya, a 50-megawatt plant, it's very small, in fact. So this is something that -- it's not a way forward on a large scale, I would say. So it's still, for me, a continent where maybe a potential, but a little immature.

On those side, I would say, the best asset we have is that we are local in many of these countries. We are there. For our Marketing & Services business, we are there. We have seen the impact in Mozambique, for example, the fact that we have these retail stations, we came. We are known. We have the reputation. And I think on that, we could build on this continent for the future, which is a growing population, core economies. And by the way, that's from a pure geopolitical point of view and the economy, the interest of Europe is to try to localize more people in Africa rather than migrations. It's nothing to see with us. So I think we have to keep this long-term vision on Africa.

The second question is an excellent question. Let's be clear. Oil and gas, we are still driven by the idea that you make money when you acquire at the right price at a low cycle. Honestly, $72 and $64, which were the average over the last two years, it's not really a low cycle. Because when you have on the screen, $68 or $70, people want to sell to you at $70. So you could -- and then you are not there. Like we were not there in the Tier 1 or licensing run in Brazil because it's worth $70. So we were not there. So when you could have specific opportunity, like on Anadarko, moving quickly on somebody who was ready to negotiate. And honestly, Mozambique is a good acquisition. So you could have some specific situation where you could, I would say, take benefit from one seller, but to negotiate when the price is at $65 and you want $50, it doesn't work. So let's be patient.

So I think for me, it's being opportunistic with TOTAL, having in mind, that we play to our strengths. So you will not see TOTAL buying a shale oil company in the US. Forget it. It cannot be more clear, clearer than today. I repeat, because it's not part of the strategy. And it's not because today -- by the way, I didn't see much in the last year, there was many transaction all in shares. No cash in any transaction. No fresh money coming in the US shale. It's not a conditional result. Again, I get the sense, the logic of my -- some of my peers, they do it. We don't do it. By the way, I think that we have no share, so no write-off and no problems today in our own results because of the -- but again, so this is oil and gas, so it's a matter of, for me, countercyclicality.

Then you ask another -- inferring another question, which is out of oil and gas. For the time being, we are comfortable with, I would say, this $500 billion bolt-on acquisitions like India. We go by, I'm not yet ready to make something of the larger scale on these field. We need to understand better this business. It's a question. We learned a lot. And it's a matter of risk management. This team who are on the table, three years ago, we had a no idea -- few ideas, but not many ideas about the power business. How does it work? What are the competitions? We need to build before we can maybe one day do something, but it's not on the agenda today, I would say.

But again, the intent is to continue to grow with electricity business. I'm very clear. We set a target. It's not only a matter of Scope 3, it's a matter of the energy market will evolve. So we need to prepare the future of the company and electricity market are developing, then the demonstration we have to do, but we do it better and better. To our Board, can we bring them projects, we have a double-digit return. If it is the case, we will do it, and we'll continue and do it. Other question?

Ladislas Paszkiewicz -- Senior Vice-President, Investor Relations

We switch to Oswald and Lydia.

Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst

Thank you. So in the essence of time, I won't ask a long-term strategy question, just three very quick numbers focused...

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Not one but three.

Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst

But very short.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good introduction.

Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst

Very short. Marketing and Services, $100 million is a very nice number for us to model and use forward, but you beat the number quite well last year, both in lubricants and retail. So just to explain, what was happening there, and could we expect that type of -- coming through? One.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

One, Alexis.

Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst

Second one was that the $4 billion of cash flow from the Big 4 in the Upstream. What length of visibility do we have in that $4 billion repeating year-after-year? I guess, the Deepwater projects will roll-off at some time. And then thirdly, LNG, 25% of your sales were spot cargoes last year. What proportion of cash flow did that contribute to your cash flow last year, please?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So Philippe, last one. The second one, I would say it's 3.5 and then average over the next five years. Just to give you a guidance. So it's not bad. Alexis, your increase, which is partly due to some operating, if I remember...

Alexis Vovk -- President, Marketing & Services

We had $300 million growth. Actually, out of those $300 million, $200 million are, I would say, an exceptional item by reevaluating some contracts, what we call open, because at the end of 2018, the price were low. They were a bit higher in 2019. So this is the gap, so I guess, if you take that out, the $100 million is there. And you can model that in your models, as I have said.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. This is an effect that we had on the working capital. We have a counter-effect. The end of prior -- the end of -- the price of oil at the end of the year, last year was quite low in fact, $54, $56. This year was $68. So this $12 add a positive impact on some open positions, which is a one-off, which would normally disappear. So we are very honest. So it does not manage to increase this cash flow by $300 million like that. But we have the counter-effect in the working cap, the increase of $1.2 billion is mainly due to the revaluation of inventories. So on one side, it's a result of the other side of the balance sheet. Okay. Philippe, your spot activity and your dollars per million BTU for any volumes you trade.

Michele Vigna -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

The spot activities, you have to understand why we are pursuing this productivity. It is not to make a profit per se on the spot cargo. In fact, we use the spot in order to optimize our global portfolio. For cargo going from Myanmar all the way to China, if I have an opportunity to buy spot cargoes in Asia and deliver to my customer in China, I will do it, and I will put the LNG cargo to another market or another one. So with just one element of the global portfolio, and this is why I cannot tell you what is the size of the profit that we generate by this spot cargo, but what is clear is that when we say overall, on all our flexible volumes, we generate some $0.8 per million BTU on average. The spot is one way to, of course, to generate this optimization.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

4.5 million tons, you convert 5 million tons, you multiply in billion BTU by 0.8 and you have the answer. As an average, because it's not -- we don't follow each deal one by one, but you have the average. Lydia?

Lydia Rainforth -- Barclays Investment Bank -- Analyst

Thanks. Two quick questions. The first on digital. It seems we are [Indecipherable] I'm going to spend some time talking about this afternoon. How has this approach changed digital over the last year? Is it just accelerated first from what it was? Are you seeing better savings? So just a little bit of how you think about the digital side. And then just a target question on production. It was nice to see Tempa Rossa actually coming onstream. So any kind of comment about how that ramp-up is going? But also, what are you expecting from Libya within the guidance for this year?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Tempa Rossa, you are -- thank you for the question, because we did not issue a press release because we are very -- it took us 18 years to put that into production. So we are super what -- superstitious, super one. So it took here 18 years, one year in [Indecipherable] to have the right to produce, which is incredible in Italy. It's a country, I mean, and there is no oil, but one unit. So now it's done, so I don't want to announce anything public because I don't know what will happen. So it's producing, by the way, 15,000 barrel per day, I think, today. It's ramping up to 50, so things are in action. It took time. Sorry for that, but no, it's -- by the way, it was why we made 8.7% and not 9% this year. It's a small gap, but we'll not complain about 9% or 8.7%, so it's Tempa Rossa.

Libya [Indecipherable], Libya, as you know, you read the newspaper like me, there is a blockade on all this production. I mean, today, I think Libya production is pulled down to 200,000 or something like that? 250,000 from 1.2 million, so we would suffer from that. Okay. But that's not more, but it's part of -- when we put a 2 to 4, the 2 is a certain prudence. Some people could be surprised, but organically, you must have a little higher figure, but you have always some in execution and nothing is perfect. So the 2 are taking part as a prudence, I would say prudent.

Last point, digitalization accelerating. What I would say to you is that we have, by the way, awarded a contract yesterday to set this digital plant with 300 engineers yesterday to Accenture. So it's moving forward quickly. What I remarked is the really enthusiasm of this team, so refining and chemicals [Indecipherable]. They want to make -- so the idea is to have 20 [Indecipherable] plant. You will have 20 line of production in parallel of teams, agile teams, able to deliver every four months, more or less, a project. So 20 times four months per year to make 60 projects per year, so it's a way to scale up and to speed up and to scale up all the digital, I would say, implementation of this technology in the company.

Today, it was one by one, where the fundamental idea is to be able, in parallel, to have addressed 50 projects per year. And not only to scale up there, I would say, the creation and the development, but then the implementation within the group because it's a matter. So you will have some more insights this afternoon from the teams here in UK because it's not only a central approach, it's also decentralized. And I think, we will come back on it, if I can. I can't say. Somebody wants to add something on it? No? Somebody else? Yeah? [Indecipherable].

Unidentified Speaker --

Bertrand.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Bertrand.

Bertrand Hodee -- Kepler Cheuvreux -- Analyst

Two questions, if I may. So the first one, have you changed your long-term assumption for gas price and oil price for your impairment test? You were using $70, I think, last...

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Gas or Oil?

Bertrand Hodee -- Kepler Cheuvreux -- Analyst

$70 for...

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay, we will come back on it.

Bertrand Hodee -- Kepler Cheuvreux -- Analyst

[Indecipherable] if you can clarify now what's your, I would say, a long-term assumption for impairment test? And the second question, which is also a bit related, you are quite, I would say, not very optimistic for long-term gas price or for LNG price. You were -- I think you said $6 per MBTU or $6 to $7. I just wonder, how do you think you can make money out of your US LNG offtake, given the condition under 15% of [Indecipherable] plus a fee plus transportation.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Philippe, you take the second one. Jean-Pierre, you explain your impairment assumptions?

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So I mentioned to you during my presentation that we use a long-term trajectory in line with the SPA scenario. So that means for oil, that by 2050, we'll be at $50 oil. And then for the gas, we are very conservative. So we are below to the SPA scenario.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So to be precise, because this will be disclosed in the document reference, we are fully transparent. So it's a little more complex. So it's like -- we consider today, we are at $60, $64. We consider that the oil price, by the way, like the SPA scenario of the IEA, which is going quite high, will increase until 2030. We'll have a plateau at $70. It's because we think that there was an underinvestment in this industry, and that this underinvestment, despite the shale oil, will have an impact. So we have a curve. And from 2030, then we go down to go down to $50. So we have a straight line guidance. So it's sort of $70, going down to $50. So -- and you will see -- so it's not one assumption. It's a little more smarter. Why? Because it's what we think.

But the world is not today under this scenario. It will be one day maybe, but today, it's more on the, I would say, the current scenario. So we don't see why we should take the lower one immediately, because, again, on the impairment test, time has a value. On the gas price, we had nothing to modify because we were very conservative $2.5 for the US, I think five or six for Europe. So we keep the same assumption because our assumptions were already quite low. And I think we made already the write-off in the past on the fuel shale gas we had in our portfolio. So it's not much to write-off yet, which has been done systematically. The $2.5 has been taken as an assumption, two, three years ago. So it was done [Indecipherable]. So we are on this with [Indecipherable] and you will have all the details. Jason? Philippe, sorry, Philippe.

Philippe Sauquet -- President, Gas, Renewables & Power

I think, it's tricky question, but OK. Well, clearly, if you take a long term price, there are opportunities to be between, let's say, $6 and $7 per BTU, and you start with -- at $3, you don't make any money. You don't lose that, but don't make any money. What is the consequence? If there is no LNG developer in order to explore, the massive amount of gas that will be exported -- that need to be exported in order to continue to produce in the Permian and so on, you cannot stay with [Indecipherable] Permian per BTU in the US.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

But the way we have...

Philippe Sauquet -- President, Gas, Renewables & Power

That's why we are very sure...

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We have an assumption of $2.5, you just tell you the $3. So fundamentally, our US position is based on the idea that the gas price in the US will be low.

Philippe Sauquet -- President, Gas, Renewables & Power

And if I might add, the cherry on the cake is that all the US volume are flexible. And this of course, as the value, the $3.8 per MBTU as a value. So if you are a global player like Total, you can generate this kind of value. If you are, I would say, a simple-minded player, have in mind, I will buy this LNG from the US and ship it to the same customer [Indecipherable] in China. Don't -- well, go away, fly away. I think there are some people who had a lot of trouble when -- due to Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi [Indecipherable]. There was, for instance, a tax on importing US LNG. So you need to be a global player to make money again.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

And by the way, as a consequence of what we said is that we don't want necessarily to produce the gas we use in the US because you have plenty of gas. And you can find today oil producer ready to commit your gas at a very low price, if you want to do it.

Jason Kenney -- Santander -- Analyst

Hi, there. It's Jason Kenney from Santander. Two short questions, please. First, on tax rate guidance. You have notably below with estimates for tax in the fourth quarter, where do you think we're going to go in 2020? And then secondly, on -- going back to LNG, I think two Chinese companies at the minute are declaring force majeure for February and March deliveries. What event is being set as the reason for force majeure? So I wasn't aware that weak demand was causation for force majeure. And if force majeure is being served, are you seeing those notices yet? And what kind of impact could that have for your LNG volumes in the second and third quarter?

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So the tax rate for the group last year was at 34%, so down by 5%, directly in relation with the low price environment because, at the same time, you have the contribution of E&P that has been reduced and the same for downstream. We consider that now and last year, we were in a $60 per barrel environment. So we anticipate at $60 per barrel, more or less the same tax rate for this year. So I would say 30%, 35% for -- at the level of the group, and for E&P alone, between 40% and 45%. But once again, it's dependent on the prices.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So for the force majeure, we have not yet received any notice, but Philippe will...

Philippe Sauquet -- President, Gas, Renewables & Power

The basic situation in Asia, clearly, is that the winter is warm, 3 degrees above normal. The demand is on the low side, and there are a lot of people, a lot of customers that have competed at long term, we have too much LNG, first. Second, where it's clear our spot prices that are very low, as you can see on the screen. There is strong temptation from some long-term customers to try to play with force majeure concept, to say, OK, I cannot take my contract by cargo under long-term contract, but I would like to buy a spot, which is a bit contradictory.

The last step, yes, might get a bit more serious because, of course, with the coronavirus. Some Chinese customers, that is one, is trying now to use the coronavirus, to say, I have force majeure, the tariffs cannot be used and so on. So I have a real force majeure. We have received one force majeure that we have rejected because it's not -- our legal analysis is that there is no force majeure. It's, I would say, it's the way we negotiate on an ongoing basis with the Chinese is not true. Of course, we have to be careful. If there is a real granted in the -- all the loading ports or unloading ports in China, we'll have a real case for force majeure, but for the time being, as you might be aware, this is not the case. So for me, it's ordinary negotiation.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

You had a question in front of us there. He has been putting his arm for 1 hour now.

Jason Gammel -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Thanks very much. Jason Gammel of Jefferies. 2019 was a very big year for Total in terms of sanctioning LNG projects, but it does appear like the industry is sanctioning quite a bit on capacity as well. I know that you're looking at the multi-decade period when it comes to evaluating projects, but how do you think about the potential for the macro to be oversupplied again in 2025, the way that it is today, when it comes to evaluating whether you go forward with incremental projects? And then just specifically, in Papua new Guinea, is the parent delay and the expansion of PNG LNG going to have any effect on Papua LNG moving forward?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So first, yeah, I mean, it has never been a very linear industry, LNG. There was no sanctions during five or six years. Suddenly, people are sanctioning projects, then it will have a gap again. By '22, '23, '24, if we continue the pace of 10% per year, I can tell you, you have this -- a big tension on the supply and you don't have enough because there is no trains coming really on stream that's enough. So -- and then '25, yes, it's clear, but suddenly, we'll have a wave of projects. We'll see if some of them are executing in the same time frame. We have observed in this industry, and unfortunately, we had a very good example in our portfolio like [Indecipherable], we had some examples. Like if these rates has been more six, seven years, then five years or four, five years. So we have -- there is a matter of execution.

Yes, it's clear that today, you have many projects coming together. I would say, it's a matter of each decision. I mean, at the end, it's -- I think each consortium of each operator is looking to each investor to a -- is a project-resilient, even it's a question of the answer of, I would say, the question of Michele, what is the assumption you take? You have to face reality. If you think that you can have $8 per million BTU in such an environment in 2026, I'm afraid you are wrong. So you have to be prudent in the way you plan, you decide, you make your decisions. And I would say, for this point of view, being the first to decide is better than being the last one because the more you have sanctions in front of you by the others, we begin to think I'm in trouble or not.

Coming back to PNG, it's clear, you know perfectly, and I have declared that this morning to the press that these projects are joined. In fact, it's an extension in Papua and PNG. We decide with Exxon, with the approval of the PNG government, that's the best way, the most efficient way to develop the LNG plant is to make an extension of the existing plants and to add three trains, two for Papua, one for PNG. So we, on our side have settled the terms. Exxon asked to settle it. Okay, I don't know if it's the best way to public -- to make statement publicly when you negotiate, but it's a question of time.

I'm convinced that the three parties will find an agreement and that the PNG government and Exxon will find an item. I would say, yes, that's true that in this context, where is it different? No, PNG, at the end, it's not a big project. It's a limited project. It's two trains. It's well positioned geographically. A lot of attraction from Japanese buyers, Chinese buyers. So at the end, it will be a projects, which we'll have to be competitive in this type of low price environment, as with this conditions, but I would say, with the terms we have, it is profitable. It's OK.

So -- but because of the environment, [Indecipherable] on the Total side, we are not in hurry, we are not driven by volume. We are driven by value. So if we have to wait six months, we wait six months. If we were to wait one year, we wait one year. We are patient. At the end, I'm convinced the project will be developed in the best efficient way, and the best efficient way is to do it jointly with Exxon on the downstream side, but we are convinced.

Unidentified Speaker --

Okay. I think we have one last question because I see time running from Lucas.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We didn't have the question of Lucas, we are not happy.

Lucas Herrmann -- Exane -- Analyst

That's very kind of you. So it's Lucas Hermann with Exane. Two, if I might. One, I'm going to ask you to let me dream and -- but the first one is to JP, and it's just loan repayments from associates, I understand the concept, but increasingly coming through the cash flow from operations line, not impossible for me to forecast how much loan repayment is going to come through in any one year. So I just wonder whether you can make any -- or give us any indication of the extent to which one will be seeing loan payments coming through the CFFO line as we go into 2020?

And the second, the question around dreaming, you suggested $200 million or so of cash flow from operations from the renewable business, the electricity business. I think that's exclusive of the $100 million from STACK. But you have plans out to 2025, you talked about new gigawatts of capacity. You've talked about lots of things that you're doing around batteries. When you look at those plans, what do you expect the CFFO to be 2025 from the renewable part of that business, not the LNG and LNG marketing component?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So first question is loan repayment. I know that what really has been. Again, if you model all our SMEs, you can do it, no, until we find -- we don't have so many -- for example, but it's clear that in the CFFO this year, we had $500 million of loan repayment coming from Yamal because the price wasn't good, because -- no, fundamentally, because this plant, by the way, it's a good news for us. We don't have that in your figures, but the production today of Yamal is 20.5 million tonnes, 20.5 million tonnes. So without -- so this plant is just extraordinary, not only it's on schedule and budget, but it's delivering an increase compared to the initial 18 million, I think it was, or 16.5 million? 16.5 million. It's delivering 20.5 million today. So we have -- and this was not planned in oil reserves and planning and productions and cash, which allow us to accelerate the loan repayments.

So this has an effect. The loan repayment is linked to what is the price environment, what is the production and so it's more difficult to plan. But true, but it's -- let's be clear, the objective of all the teams in Total in all these companies is to accelerate the loan repayments. So we have a duty in Korea for HEC, in [Indecipherable] with Saudi Aramco. And generally, I don't know why, but our share of cover investors are in agreement with us. We are all happy to see money flowing back to the investors, so that's clear. But it's the same mechanism. It's a loan repayment, but when you make in a PSC some cost recovery, I mean, I'm -- at $64, we have accelerated some cost recovery from Kaombo. It's better to start Kaombo at $64 than at $50. So compared to the model, it's the same mechanism, and that's linked to the oil price and the production, of course, the two. So there is not much difference in terms of models between the cost recovery in oil and the loan repayment in the LNG plant, in fact, fundamentally.

Lucas Herrmann -- Exane -- Analyst

Patrick, I'm not criticizing it.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Oh no, I mean, in the sense...

Lucas Herrmann -- Exane -- Analyst

It's simply to try and understand. What I don't know is scale of the outstanding and, therefore, what one can expect.

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

It's not outstanding. It's believing in our $1 billion plus at $60 next year. Believe in it. That's all what I -- and we will deliver it. That's why the guidance we gave, OK? And it's taking into account all these effects. At the group level, the group is large enough with many assets, but the one we'll deliver, the other one we'll not deliver. So it's not linear, all that. And it's the advantage. We have a large portfolio of assets and these type of assets. Okay.

Lucas Herrmann -- Exane -- Analyst

Okay. Now the dream?

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

The dream. The dream is that we gave you a figure today, it's only $200 million of CFFO. So I think it will reach $1 billion. I don't know. I try to give you a figure. Now, but not -- I know, I know, I know. I will come back to you in September. But honestly, all that is a growing business. We invest and we have to put together. And we have -- but $1 billion is a good ambition. And honestly, either we manage to have an acceptable size for all that or we'll have a question mark, but it cannot be just -- it's not a good washing story and to have an acceptable size, it will go for CFFO, that's the only -- that's one of the metrics we need to reach.

Duration: 180 minutes

Call participants:

Arnaud Breuillac -- President, Exploration & Production

Patrick Pouyanne -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Helle Kristoffersen -- President, Strategy & Innovation

Jean-Pierre Sbraire -- Chief Financial Officer

Bernard Pinatel -- President, Refining & Chemicals

Alexis Vovk -- President, Marketing & Services

Philippe Sauquet -- President, Gas, Renewables & Power

Michele Vigna -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Unidentified Participant -- -- Analyst

Irene Himona -- Societe Generale -- Analyst

Namita Shah -- President People and Social Responsibility

Christyan Malek -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Helle Kristoffersen -- President, Strategy and Innovation

Ladislas Paszkiewicz -- Senior Vice-President, Investor Relations

Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst

Lydia Rainforth -- Barclays Investment Bank -- Analyst

Unidentified Speaker --

Bertrand Hodee -- Kepler Cheuvreux -- Analyst

Jason Kenney -- Santander -- Analyst

Jason Gammel -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Lucas Herrmann -- Exane -- Analyst

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