France's TotalEnergies will buy 19.4% of its shares from Russian energy giant Novatek for $3.7 billion, the company said.

TotalEnergies will fire two of its representatives from Novatek's board of directors and will no longer include income from its investment in Novatek in its financial statements.

The move will also affect TotalEnergies' proven reserves, reducing them by 1.7 billion barrels.

Unlike its competitors Shell and BP, TotalEnergies has been heavily criticized for not abandoning its investments in Russia because of the war in Ukraine.

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said last month that TotalEnergies' only motivation for keeping its assets in Russia was to deliver liquefied natural gas to Europe.

TotalEnergies said two of its representatives on Novatek's board of directors abstained from voting on the company's affairs and in particular on financial issues after the war and subsequent Western sanctions.

The company retains a stake in Russia's Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2 projects.