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ETABLISSEMENT PAU LACQ
Olivier Cousso has been working at TotalEnergies as a sustainable development engineer for Drilling & Wells activities at TotalEnergies since 2022. What does his mission at the CSTJF in Pau consist of? Finding solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of drilling operations.
Having been a drilling engineer in the Company for over fifteen years, and now Head of the decarbonization of Drilling & Wells activities, Olivier followed the École Polytechnique Executive Education Renewable Energies training program in 2021.
Olivier, what does your job involve?
I'm the 'conductor' of the Sustainable Development roadmap for Drilling & Wells at TotalEnergies, through its five Sustainable Development sectors: Energy consumption, Carbon emissions, Environment, Communities and Care at Work. I take care of training staff, gathering the initiatives applicable to our industry, establishing the criteria and tools for measuring the progress made, and structuring their implementation in the Company’s different affiliates. The main priorities include the hybridization-electrification of our drilling rigs to reduce and/or eliminate the use of diesel generators, onshore to begin with, then later offshore, where the most significant reductions in emissions are expected (offshore drilling rigs are larger and therefore consume more diesel). Innovation has a very important place in my job, as we need to present our stakeholders (contractors, staff, partners, etc.) with a new way of approaching our activities, in different technical and cultural environments. Innovation doesn’t necessarily mean invention though, and we therefore need to encourage the affiliates to think about their local challenges (water consumption, drilling a borehole close to a community, a remote site in the desert, etc.) to find solutions to different issues for which we are regularly audited by external partners (waste treatment, recycling drilling muds, use of bio-sourced products, real-time measurement of fuel and power consumption and remote data collection). As regards the last point for example, a 10% reduction is expected by adopting this solution and through the mobilization of the teams on board.
Why is it important for TotalEnergies?
The challenge for TotalEnergies is to be an exemplary operator and to continue to appeal to partners and investors by developing its energy transition roadmap. In this context, my mission is to identify and implement solutions for drilling wells even more responsibly and not just from safety and efficiency standpoint. The aim is therefore to reduce Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from Drilling & Wells activities (direct emissions from fossil energies) by 40% in 2030.
I also support other Company entities (Production and Logistics) in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel consumed by the static and rotating motors used on our facilities all over the world (approximately 2% of TotalEnergies’ total emissions in 2023).
What are the qualities and competencies required to do the job of a sustainable development engineer?
My function implies listening to the many in-house and cross-functional contacts (Affiliates and central services), to understand and popularize subjects related to the aforementioned sustainable development challenges and propose business models to the affiliates, in particular for decarbonization solutions. You have to be able to convince all the stakeholders involved in drilling activities to invest in innovative solutions to fertilize the ecosystem among operators, contractors and service companies. Solidarity is essential to creating a collaborative environment. In short, you need to be open-minded, inquisitive, know how to think outside the box in terms of engineering to incorporate the sustainable development dimension while being practical and pragmatic, to propose tangible solutions with a positive impact on operations.
You also use your solidarity ethos in the association Électriciens Sans Frontières - ESF Why?
I joined ESF after obtaining my Electrician’s Professional Aptitude Certificate (CAP) as an external candidate in 2022. Their activities to help populations that have difficulties accessing energy really resonated with me, my career path and my commitments. For the moment, I don’t have enough time to contribute to the projects as much as I’d like to, but I’ve forged links with the members of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques delegation, and this year I worked so that they could come to the CSTJF during Solidarity Energy week. The aim was for people to get to know about the association and the projects it has worked on with TotalEnergies, including a medical and educational center in Madagascar, the electrification of 13 schools, of which five have now been completed in Haiti, the Cafés Lumière project in several countries (Togo, Bénin, Madagascar, etc.). For memory, we have a global solidarity program called Action! that gives employees the opportunity to volunteer with one of the referenced associations. The association can offer skills-based assignments to our colleagues in affiliates wherever it is present. The personnel who came to chat to us on that day were also able to sign up to become members of the association.
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