Total Energies (TTE FP) CEO says there was a big debate whether we should declare force majeure on LNG

A force majeure declaration on LNG is the strongest lever a producer holds over its term contract obligations: it suspends delivery commitments without penalties and has, in past episodes of supply disruption, shifted contracted volumes toward the spot market or left buyers scrambling for replacement cargoes at whatever the prompt market will bear. The telling detail here is that the debate happened and was resolved without a declaration, which in prior comparable situations has meant the operator judged the disruption manageable or temporary rather than structural, since force majeure carries reputational and legal costs with offtakers that producers invoke reluctantly. The distinction that matters is between a supply outage serious enough to trigger the declaration, which would tighten prompt LNG balances and typically lift European hub prices and Asian spot benchmarks, and one that stays a debate, where the market impact tends to be confined to near-term shipping and scheduling friction. The follow-ons are any guidance on the scale and duration of the affected volumes, whether offtakers face delays or cuts in practice, and whether the commentary was tied to a specific asset outage that would show up in shipping data. Public remarks of this kind are usually made to reassure, so the test is whether subsequent cargo tracking confirms normal liftings.