TotalEnergies celebrates its 100th anniversary in Pau

At the end of the First World War, our country, almost devoid of hydrocarbons, realized that it was totally dependent on Anglo-Saxon companies for its supply. For reasons of national security, it needed to control its access to oil. This was the mission entrusted to the Compagnie Française des Pétroles created in 1924, which marked the beginning of a real industrial saga.

Just before the Second World War, the Régie autonome des pétroles was founded, followed by the Société nationale de pétroles d’Aquitaine. It was the latter, which had been looking for hydrocarbons in Southwest France since 1941, that made the famous gas discovery in the Lacq basin.

At each stage of its history, which also included Elf Aquitaine and TotalFinaElf, our Company has always known how to harness the new technologies at its disposal and the transformations in society. This fabulous adventure was made possible thanks to the boldness, passion, and commitment of generation upon generation of men and women, which is what the Management of the TotalEnergies Site in Pau chose to highlight on the occasion of this anniversary.

The Béarn region, one of the Company’s birthplaces

Today, among the Company’s 100,000 employees worldwide, 35,000 work in France. And where does the Béarn region stand in all this? The locals like to say that the Béarn region is one of the Company’s birthplaces. It still has a strong presence in Pau, with around 2,500 employees at the CSTJF plus the PERL, SOBEGI, RETIA and BioBéarn teams in Lacq (take a look here at the map of TotalEnergies sites in Southwest France).

Celebrating this centenary was therefore an important local event. 2,572 people gathered together in a festive setting created especially for them at the exhibition hall in Pau on March 28 and 29, 2024. The employees and their spouses and partners were invited to come and join the revels that would assuredly go down in history. Among the external public figures, the Mayor of Pau, François Bayrou, and the Prefect of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department Julien Charles insisted on being present to share the moment..

Jérôme Poncet, the Head of the TotalEnergies Site in Pau, addressed all the guests to remind them that for our 100th anniversary celebration, we are facing a new challenge: reconciling a growing energy demand and the imperative to achieve net zero for the planet; we need to build the energy system of the future, in which gas and electricity, renewable in particular, will represent an increasingly large share, while continuing to supply the energy the world currently needs. Alongside our clients and partners and spurred on by the pioneering spirit that has inspired us from the start, our aim is to be one of the main players of the energy transition while continuing to constantly reinvent ourselves. "Thanks to you, the Company is lucky enough to be able to rely on men and women who are ready to rise to these challenges to supply energy to as many people as possible in compliance with the most stringent environmental standards. Pioneering spirit is almost second nature in the Béarn region. We are showing here that we are deeply rooted in this region, nestled between the Pyrenees and the Ocean, that brings us so much joy. I think I can fairly safely say that we’re ready to continue to write the pages of the next one hundred years together," he concluded.