French oil major TotalEnergies has successfully closed a number of high-profile deals in Qatar, Iraq and the UAE. TotalEnergies is seen by some senior members of the EU as sometimes fulfilling a role that straddles both economic and political agendas. TotalEnergies is one of Qatar’s leading partners in the supergiant North Field. Because crude oil is still the lifeblood of any well-functioning economy and because the infrastructure surrounding it is so multi-faceted – including extensive pipelines running across vast swathes of land, expensive drilling rigs and refineries in place, and heavy on-the-ground security operations to protect such valuable installations – the major oil companies of various countries often play a bigger role for their countries than just a straightforward commercial one. At the extremes, there are the state-run oil companies of Russia and China that are at the vanguard of their countries’ geopolitical stratagems, and the same can be […]