Total announced its quarterly profit fell by 99 percent because of dropping oil prices and announced it would slash investments in response to ongoing turmoil in crude markets.
The French oil major reported a net profit of 34 million dollars for the first quarter, against the 3.1 billion dollars registered a year earlier.
"The Group is facing exceptional circumstances: The Covid-19 health crisis which is affecting the world economy and creating major uncertainties, and the oil market crisis, with the sharp drop in oil prices since March," CEO Patrick Pouyanne said in a statement.
The sharp fall in oil and gas prices depressed Total's cash flow from operations by nearly two thirds. Since the end of March, oil has been hit further by a collapse in demand due to the economic impact of the coronavirus, even going negative at one point last month, when sellers had to pay buyers to take oil off their hands.
