TotalEnergies CEO: petrol prices will stay high for a while, announces certain aid measures for customers

PARIS (Reuters) – Petrol prices will remain high for a while both due to sustained demand and a lack of investments in production facilities over the last years, the head of the French energy company TotalEnergies said on Wednesday.

“I’ve no good news to deliver, oil prices will remain high”, Patrick Pouyanne told RTL Radio, adding TotalEnergies would hand out a 100 euros ($114.20) voucher to help some of its lower-income clients deal with high energy bills.

Rising energy prices have caused inflationary pressures across Europe. Oil prices climbed on Wednesday after two sessions of losses as industry data showed an unexpected drop in U.S. crude and fuel stocks, offsetting concerns of a possible rise in supplies from Iran. [O/R]

($1 = 0.8757 euros)

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)