Patrick Pouyanné meets the teams in the Béarn

On the occasion of the World Day for Safety (WDfS), Patrick Pouyanné, the President and CEO of TotalEnergies traveled to Induslacq, to visit SOBEGI and the Lacq pilot platform, then to Mourenx for the inauguration of BioBéarn, before ending the day at the CSTJF in Pau. 

Each year, the World Day for Safety (WDfS) is an opportunity to reiterate the importance of Safety as a core value for our Company. On TotalEnergies sites worldwide, employees and their work partners are invited to take part in discussions and activities to raise awareness of the importance of safety in all its forms. This year’s theme was industrial risk management, a topic of major importance for the energy industry. 

The meeting with the SOBEGI teams, who play a key role in the technical management of the Lacq and Mourenx industrial platforms, was an opportunity to address the challenges of industrial risk management for the employees and subcontractors working on our sites.

The teams at the PERL presented the TADI project (TotalEnergies Anomaly Detection Initiatives), an infrastructure that is used to perform controlled gas leak or greenhouse gas emission quantification tests. The President and CEO was able to see how much the platform has evolved and it is now recognized as a global reference alongside the METEC program developed by the University of Columbia in the USA. He was then able to watch demonstrations of methane leak detection technologies – a major stake in the Company’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – including AUSEA, comprising a miniature dual sensor mounted on a drone, and STORM (Safety Tool for Operators & Remote Monitoring), a decision-making application, the aim of which is to improve industrial risk management through real-time early gas-leak detection and the use of a robot. Lastly, before he left for Pau, the teams gave a presentation focused on the development of fiber optics for the seismic monitoring of CO2 storage.

At the CSTJF, a number of stands and workshops had been set up for the WDfS dedicated to technological risks. The R&D teams for example were proposing to “Understand, anticipate, design and detect to reduce the risk of major hydrogen-related accidents”. Participants could also play a serious game on the “Management of technological risks in the CO2 transport and storage chain”, watch videos on drilling operations, and attend a demonstration of security based on fiber optics and a drone detection system. Patrick Pouyanné took the time to exchange a few words with the employees holding the stands before giving a speech to an audience of 800 people in the Company restaurant. This moment of sharing with the Pau teams was an opportunity to review the Company’s strategy and the role of the CSTJF and the PERL in meeting the challenges of the energy world of the future. Patrick Pouyanné firmly asserted that oil and gas exploration and production will remain essential for many years to meet global demand. The skills developed by the teams will be necessary to ensure the growth of projects that are both competitive and in line with our objective “Net Zero by 2050”. 

The President and CEO referred to the symbolism of the new BioBéarn anaerobic digester unit installed right next to the former gas production facilities of Lacq: from the extraction of gas from the subsurface to the production of green gas by this amazing plant in the Lacq basin, the history of our Company lives on in the Béarn region. Patrick Pouyanné concluded his speech by saying how proud he was of the work accomplished by the TotalEnergies teams to produce energy that is ever more affordable, clean, reliable, and accessible to as many people as possible. He also mentioned how pleased he was to be visiting one of the historic birthplaces of TotalEnergies, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary on March 28, 2024.