TOTAL Brochure Cstjf En

CSTJF /Total’s Exploration & Production Scientific and Technical Center/

CSTJF /An integrated hub of expertise /

exploration & production

CSTJF /11 Foreword

12 Staying connected

16 HSE (Health, Safety & Environment)

19 Geosciences

33 Drilling and wells

45 Operating techniques

53 Research and pilot applications

64 A regional hub

69 Key figures

72 A crucial link in the energy chain

3

More than thirty nationalitiesTotal’s E&P Scientific and Technical Center is located in Pau, southwestern France’s economic hub. The Center’s nearly 2,000 persons represent some thirty different nationalities and encompass the full range of exploration and production expertise.

A unique purpose

7

End-to-end expertiseBuilt on a sprawling 27-hectare campus, the CSTJF is home to experts from every discipline of the exploration and production value chain. This proximity facilitates exchanges between geosciences, drilling and reservoir development specialists and the integration of these diverse fields of expertise — all of which are vital to redefining feasibility in the oil and gas industry.

Global reach Providing technical support to Total’s E&P subsidiaries is one of the R&D center’s key roles, because the CSTJF has to deploy the full weight of its innovative capabilities in the field, worldwide.

The Centre Scientifique et Technique Jean-Féger (CSTJF) technical center is the main platform for the scientific expertise and R&D activity of Total Exploration & Production. With state-of-the-art lab resources and powerful computing and telecommunications capabilities, the CSTJF is an industry-leading R&D center whose staff of 2,000 delivers a wide array of skills.

This extensive, future-focused campus forges the keys that open up the most extreme frontiers of the world’s energy provinces. The CSTJF pumps its scientific and technical lifeblood into Total’s E&P subsidiaries worldwide, providing ongoing support in identifying resources for the future and helping them to write new and exciting chapters in the adventure of the oil and gas industry.

Named after the engineer who helped to discover the Lacq natural gas field, the CSTJF is located in Pau, southwestern France, the cradle of Total’s operations in its home country. It plays a pivotal role in the regional economy and partners its sustainable growth.

Yves-Louis DarricarrèrePresident Exploration & Production

Foreword /

11Foreword

Staying connected /Within the walls of the Alpha Building, home to Total’s private worldwide telecommunications network, the supervision system operates 24/7. Ensuring the optimum reliability and availability of this highly strategic broadband network is critical, because it carries the communications that run constantly between the E&P subsidiaries and the Center in Pau. In addition to voice telephone traffic between the site and the rest of the world, the telecommunications infrastructure at the CSTJF handles video and audio communications from up to 21 videoconferences at a time and transmits an abundant flow of digital data around the world.

The uninterrupted flow reflects the CSTJF’s pivotal role in the day-to-day activities of the subsidiaries. It is supplemented by frequent meetings between operational personnel based around the world and their contacts at the Center. Each year, the globetrotting contacts head off on some 3,500 international assignments to provide on-site support to their counterparts at Total locations worldwide.

13Staying connected

With a reach extending to the four corners of the Earth, the CSTJF also serves as a central point of contact and a training center for people of many different nationalities. More than a hundred international management-level employees — technicians and engineers recruited by Total subsidiaries around the world — join the Center’s teams each year. They come for a period of three or more years at strategic junctures in their careers, shaped by the international mobility inherent in the Group’s global scale. Staff from partner national oil companies and representatives of Total E&P host countries also come to the Center for state-of-the-art training. A wide range of training and internship programs is available to meet the diverse needs of participants from all backgrounds. Most of these programs are targeted and short-term, but skills transfer can also take the form of customized programs lasting several months or take place within the framework of two-year stints that provide on-the-job training. Courses draw on the wealth of technological resources available at the Center. These span the full range of oil and gas industry expertise, such as exploration, appraisal of discoveries, design of complex borehole trajectories, deployment of innovative solutions to boost recovery factors, and managing industrial impact. They take advantage of the enormous computing power that places the CSTJF in the ranks of the world’s leading scientific data processing centers. The Center also boasts an impressive platform of high-tech laboratories and — of course — an unmatched concentration of world-class skills.

The CSTJF is a crucible of expertise and a melting pot of cultures. Everyone shares the same ambition: producing more oil and gas more efficiently. That is why Total’s stringent requirements concerning the safety of people and environmental protection are enforced here and on all sites.

KnowledgeTransferring knowledge is one of the CSTJF’s core functions. Each year, the Center opens its doors to numerous employees from Total’s E&P headquarters and subsidiaries. They come not only to broaden and share their knowledge, but also to capitalize on the worldwide experience acquired by the Center’s teams.

Sphere of knowledge

15Staying connected

HSE / Health, Safety & Environment

Oil and gas production is a hazardous business. Ever present and multi-faceted, the risks are proportional to the scale of Total’s large industrial projects. These can entail millions of man-hours of work by crews of thousands mobilized simultaneously on a single worksite, or the installation of components and systems weighing hundreds of tons on the seafloor. Every day, the teams working on projects and at operating sites strive to achieve Total’s goal of “zero accidents.”The safety of people and property is the top priority at every level of the organization. Specialized Health, Safety and Environment engineers provide support across the E&P value chain to achieve the Group’s ambitious targets for the safety of its own employees and those of its many contractors.

Environmental protection is a priority and the focus of numerous research projects at the CSTJF. This is an overriding concern of Total’s operations at production sites around the world. From the outset, every project is designed to limit the impact of its operations on air, water and biodiversity — an impact that is closely monitored. Total E&P is assertively committed to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, a crucial thrust of efforts to tackle climate change. Water, which is always produced with oil and gas, is managed sustainably through reinjection into the original reservoirs whenever possible, while any producted water discharged into the natural environment is treated to comply with very stringent standards.

Thanks to the combined efforts of experts at the CSTJF and in the subsidiaries, Total reconciles production growth with profitability goals and the imperatives of human safety and environmental protection. These priorities are an integral part of the industry’s responsibilities to current and future generations.

17HSE (Health, Safety & Environment)

The reservoir, up close and personalGeophysics, geology (itself a broad field encompassing more than 20 disciplines) and reservoir engineering all share the same goal — discovering, understanding and characterizing reservoirs, complex geological structures that contain oil, gas and water. The ultimate goal is to generate detailed models of a reservoir’s architecture and internal structure and the behavior of fluids during a field’s producing life.

19Géosciences

Geo-sciences /

19Geosciences

From field to computerOutcrops are structurally similar to subsurface oil reservoirs, and have been brought to the surface by the Earth’s tectonic movements. Field studies are coupled with laboratory studies of samples taken from reservoirs to build a sedimentary model of oil fields.

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POSSIBLE STRUCTURAL PLAYS IN DEEP FOOTHILLS

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G. NELY,2004

The geosciences disciplines bring together the expertise of geophysicists, reservoir geologists and reservoir engineers. Reservoir geologists focus on understanding and predicting the behavior of oil and gas basins over time and in space. Their job is to characterize the elements that form an oil system — the source rock, the reservoirs in which the oil is trapped, and the cap rock that holds the oil in the reservoir. The foundation of the oil and gas industry, geology is a broad discipline subdivided into some twenty fields of specialization. These include organic geochemistry (the study of source rocks), sedimentology (the study of sedimentary processes that form reservoirs), structural geology (to understand the structure of oil basins and reservoirs) and biostratigraphy (the study of the microorganisms found in sediment). Geological expertise plays a role at every stage, from the acquisition of acreage to production of reserves. The work done by geologists, especially sedimentary modeling of traps to predict the volume of oil or gas in place, allows reservoir engineers to estimate the productivity of the fields discovered and to model fluid movement during production. It also helps reservoir architects to optimize the development plan for individual fields.

The combination of theoretical knowledge, experience gained over the years from fieldwork, and characterization of samples of rocks and fluids taken during drilling contribute to numerical models made possible through the rapid growth in computing capacity. Samples provide valuable hard information when building these models, although their size is extremely limited compared to the overall scale of the field under investigation. In fact, the challenge addressed daily by reservoir geologists and engineers is comparable in complexity to modeling the Eiffel Tower based on a sample the size of a pinhead.

21Geosciences

Core samples by the thousandsCore samples are cylinders of rock removed during drilling and are the only visible elements of petroleum reservoirs. Every year, Total’s subsidiaries ship new samples totaling a thousand meters in length to the CSTJF, where they are added to its large collection. The Center is equipped to extract a maximum amount of valuable data from them.

Journey to the center of the Earth

23Geosciences

The CSTJF receives samples for analysis from the around the world. Its extensive collection of core samples taken during drilling is used to study the composition of reservoir rocks in minute detail. The geology laboratory is equipped with a CT scanner for three-dimensional imaging. At the same time, the physical properties of reservoir rock and their ability to contain and accommodate the flow of oil or gas are analyzed in petrophysics laboratories. The recombined fluids are studied under reservoir temperature and pressure conditions. Experiments that can last up to several months predict the effectiveness of various production processes on a microscopic scale. The aim is to understand how oil or gas will behave over the twenty-year (or longer) producing life of the reservoir.

A CT scanner to analyze core samplesThe CT scanner is just one of the high-tech instruments available at the CSTJF geological laboratory. Tomographic images of core samples are re-combined to yield three-dimensional images that pinpoint differences in density between the various components of the sample. This in turn gives a virtually direct indication of the volume of hydrocarbons contained in each sample, a key factor in reservoir characterization.

25Geosciences

Among the geosciences disciplines, geophysics has emerged as one of the CSTJF’s areas of excellence. Based on seismic technology, geophysics “reveals the invisible” — the reservoir. Acoustic waves generated by vibrations on land or at sea are partially reflected by the various geological strata they encounter as they propagate through the subsurface. Logging the signals of these reflected waves at the surface yields an image of the geological layers. The data are then used to build a three-dimensional model of the contours and internal architecture of the oil traps. Through ongoing dialogue, geophysicists in the E&P subsidiaries and specialists at the CSTJF can recommend the most appropriate acquisition systems for offshore and onshore operations. In addition, the Center’s team helps to build the most complex seismic images using innovative processing algorithms that require the extensive computing power available at the CSTJF.

Imaging technology and human insightSatellite images giving broad views of petroleum basins, seismic reflections revealing the chaotic contours and folds of the subsurface, and three-dimensional models of reservoirs with their geological structures and fluids — these images have much to tell geoscientists who know how to interpret them. Although calculations are one key to understanding and managing reservoirs, the art of interpretation is what makes them accessible.

27Geosciences

123 trillion floating-point operations per second

29Géosciences

29Geosciences

Dizzying computing powerBoasting a record computing power of 123 teraflops — or 123 trillion floating-point operations per second — the new high-performance computer acquired by the CSTJF in 2008 makes Total a global leader in scientific processing capacity. This capacity is rising steadily and is expected to reach 1 petaflop in the near future. It is primarily used to process the complex calculation codes developed by the CSTJF to enhance the resolution and reliability of subsurface seismic images.

Mass storage Every day, the volume of digital data at the CSTJF swells with the addition of thousands of bytes of data from computation, design and modeling applications. Backing up these data is critical and relies on an internal storage capacity of 2.5 trillion bytes, equivalent to a five-meter high stack of CD-ROMs. To ensure integrity and security in the event of a disaster or other major incident on site, the data is transferred to an offsite storage vault every week.

What do a supercomputer, a medical-type CT scanner and a small chamber pressurized to one metric ton per square centimeter have in common? They are all part of the CSTJF’s Geosciences platform. This hardware, along with other equipment, is used for studies conducted in Pau to assist the subsidiaries’ efforts to discover and appraise new oil and gas reservoirs. Buried as far as 8,000 meters beneath the Earth’s surface, in ultra-deep water or trapped in the chaotic geology of mountain ranges, yet-to-be-discovered oil and gas resources are spurring the industry to explore new and extreme frontiers, pushing technology to its furthest limits.

Exactly how deep is a reservoir? How big is it? Does this gigantic sequence of sedimentary rock contain oil or gas? How much, and how much can be recovered? To help answer some of these questions, E&P subsidiaries call on the CSTJF. For the most complex scenarios, the full range of the Center’s technological resources and advanced know-how are brought into play. The CSTJF and the subsidiaries have to pool their efforts to obtain reliable answers to these strategic questions.

31Geosciences

State-of-the-art technologyIn the labs, experts in physics, chemistry and rock mechanics provide decisive input to prepare drilling programs. Although the basic principle of drilling is simple enough — bore a hole until it reaches oil or gas — drilling programs are industrial exploits that can take several years. Realizing them is a challenge that demands state-of-the-art technology.

Drillingand wells /

33Drilling and wells

Compagnie Française des Pétroles, the forerunner of today’s Total and a shareholder in Iraq Petroleum Company, made its first oil strike in Kirkuk in 1927. Total’s Argentine subsidiary completed a two-year drilling program in Tierra del Fuego in 1999. One of the eleven wells drilled set a new world record for length, at 11,884 meters. Drilled from the shore, it descended more than 1,600 meters into the subsurface before continuing its horizontal trajectory to tap an offshore field lying more than 10 kilometers from the coast.

Drilling is a high-tech undertaking, in which physics, chemistry, data processing, real-time analysis of downhole logging data (recorded during drilling) and sophisticated well-steering tools are vital to managing today’s increasingly complex well trajectories.


CompressionTo study the mechanical properties of rock, this dedicated laboratory is equipped with sophisticated equipment that includes a 20-ton electromechanical press to compress unconsolidated rock and two 60- and 160-metric-ton hydraulic presses for tests on semi-consolidated and compact rock.

Simulating extreme conditions

More than 1,000 barIn the U.K. sector of the North Sea, Total drilled one of the very first stepout wells in a high-pressure/high-temperature environment. The 7,300-meter-long Glenelg well reached its target 5,600 meters beneath the seabed, with a reservoir temperature of 200°C and pressure of 1,150 bar. This feat was only made possible through the complex studies performed by the CSTJF’s drilling laboratories.

Drilling horizontal wells thousands of meters long that cross through one reservoir after another over their entire length is just one of the technological challenges facing Total’s experts. And this challenge is of an entirely different magnitude when the fields are deeply buried. Take, for example, the Elgin Field in the North Sea, where Total E&P UK had to work with high-temperature/high-pressure gas and condensate discovered under more than 5,500 meters of rock. At these depths, temperature hovers around 200°C and pressure exceeds 1,000 bar. One major difficulty lies in steering well trajectories without the help of downhole instrumentation, as electronic devices cannot operate under these physical conditions. Another is accessing the petroleum traps without triggering a blowout under pressure. In the Gulf of Guinea in the 1990s, Total E&P Angola embarked on a pioneering quest to drill in 1,500 meters of water. Drilling rigs evolved into floating vessels, their stability guaranteed by an ultra-sophisticated dynamic positioning system to centimeter-scale tolerance, even in rough seas.


In all cases, efficiency is the watchword when it comes to minimizing the time it takes to drill wells, which can cost up to a million dollars per day. Whether it lasts less than a month or takes a year, every drilling assignment must juggle the need for speed and the imperative of risk management. An unstable wellbore or damage to the rock formation during drilling could jeopardize the well and its productivity. Thanks to its range of engineering and testing expertise and skills, the CSTJF is the partner of choice when subsidiaries encounter challenging situations. Borehole stability during drilling is a major topic of investigation at the Rock Mechanics Laboratory. There, strength tests are conducted on samples of the geological strata encountered in order to optimize even the riskiest well trajectories.


In pursuit of perfectionTo limit the ever-increasing costs of drilling as much as possible, perfection is the key — and the secret to optimizing drilling efficiency. Attaining this high standard requires in-depth knowledge of the rock encountered and its “response” to the drilling. This is one of the fundamental missions of the Rock Mechanics Laboratory.

ProductivityThe reservoir/borehole interface is a strategic zone for well productivity. In certain configurations, well completions must include sand control systems to filter the sand produced along with the petroleum fluids so as not to jeopardize productivity or damage equipment. Laboratory studies guide the choice of the most appropriate sand control device based on the type and quantity of sand produced.


Made-to-measureThese drilling muds were developed for two Angolan fields located a few kilometers apart in the deepwater Gulf of Guinea. Despite the similarities in the subsurface layers encountered, the mud formulation, essential to smooth drilling operations, is specific to each one.

Simulations and analysesThe operational subsidiaries and the CSTJF are in frequent contact throughout the life of a field. During the production phase, the Center’s experts can apply their analysis and simulation resources to assess productivity and recommend physical and/or chemical solutions to enhance it.

Also known as muds, drilling fluids play a major role in borehole stability. Injected under pressure at the bottom of the hole, they circulate constantly, bringing the drill cuttings to the surface. Mud density is controlled to ensure balanced pressure between the hole and the formation. If the mud is too heavy, it could be forced into the rock, damaging the reservoir and potentially jeopardizing the stability of the borehole. If it is too light, fluid (either water or hydrocarbons) may seep from the surrounding formation into the well bore.

This is where the expertise of the chemists at the Mud and Cement Laboratory comes into play. Their task is to find the right balance and most effective formulation for the drilling mud. For their part, the experts from the Productivity Laboratory will select specific additives to minimize damage or restore the productivity of reservoir zones, particularly the tiny networks of fractures that allow oil and gas to flow through the rock and into the well when it is brought on stream. Unlike the early Kirkuk project, drilling is no longer a task for a single person. It requires the combined know-how of an integrated team of specialists.


Decades Producing a reservoir is a complex, dynamic process lasting many years, in which enormous volumes of fluids of varying viscosity and corrosiveness are set in motion using a variety of technologies. The major themes addressed by operations specialists include forestalling the inevitable decline in production over the years, preventing the deterioration of production facilities and adapting extraction processes to the physical and chemical changes taking place in the reservoirs.

Operating techniques /

45Operating techniques

The art of preventionMany factors, such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, bacteria and suspended solids in the fluids produced, can cause corrosion and pose a major threat to the integrity of installations. Corrosion management comprises prevention and equipment inspection and maintenance, which are entrusted to experts in materials and physical chemistry.

An oil accumulation is not an underground lake that can simply be pumped to bring its contents to the surface. Oil and natural gas are trapped in porous, permeable rock formations, called reservoirs, that resemble pumice. Recovering the resources involves draining the pores, and only a small percentage of the reserves in place (10 to 35% for crude oil) can feasibly be extracted. The exact amount depends on the rock’s properties and on the ability of the fluid to flow and pass through it. Enhancing the recovery factor by even a few percentage points has a tremendous impact on reserve replacement and is a core challenge for all the disciplines involved in oil and gas production.


It takes several years to bring a field into production after it is discovered. During that period, the focus is on identifying the most appropriate technologies and systems needed to produce the field. The CSTJF calculates the well trajectories that will achieve optimum drainage of the reservoirs. Teams also conduct physicochemical analyses to predict the behavior of hydrocarbons during production, especially their ability to reach the well; estimate the quantities of oil, gas and water that will be produced over the lifetime of the field; and identify and mitigate all factors liable to hinder production, such as pipe clogging or corrosion. In addition to the long list of factors that will guide the definition of the production plan, risks relating to seismic activity, the ocean environment and meteorological conditions (such as the threat of hurricanes or ice formation for offshore facilities) must be assessed and taken into account.


Action, reaction, corrosion

Amines versus acidsThe CSTJF has developed a wide range of proprietary gas sweetening solutions based on amine chemistry. One of these, the MDEA process, is used for corrosion control in the 105-kilometer pipeline that carries moderately sour gas from Iran’s offshore South Pars field to the onshore gas treatment plant.

Hydrate loopResembling ice plugs, hydrates form in hydrocarbons in the presence of water and gas under specific pressure and temperature conditions. They constitute a serious physicochemical risk. The CSTJF’s hydrate loop, where hydrocarbons flow at controlled temperature and pressure, is used to study and quantify the specific risks for each field, then to test preventive solutions.

Throughout the decades-long life of a field, the CSTJF works with the subsidiaries to extract maximum value from their assets by supporting productivity, extending producing life and maximizing recovery of the field’s reserves. Expert analyses of rock samples and fluids provide data that influence recommendations for processes to restore productivity in reservoir layers that can deteriorate over the production period.

A wide array of leading-edge technologies can also be deployed to boost output by “forcing” the hydrocarbons to flow to the wells. Conventionally, water and gas are injected to create an underground front designed to push the maximum possible amount of hydrocarbons in the right direction. But more sophisticated techniques are also available. Analytical chemistry and “fingerprinting” of the fluids extracted from a reservoir make it possible to formulate additives tailored to the properties of individual reservoirs. When added to the water or gas being injected, these additives enhance the ability to displace the crude oil from the rock. The CSTJF is also examining the feasibility of using polymer, air, steam or solvent injection to devise new solutions that will boost final recovery factors by 5 to 10%.

In the drive to improve well productivity, the CSTJF has the resources it needs to develop new tools to support subsidiaries, which focus on day-to-day operations. For example, new software applications have been developed to track and identify possible causes of production losses in real time. These innovations have pioneered a new era of remote monitoring of site performance. Field monitoring and analytical data can be accessed in real time from subsidiary offices and the CSTJF. This facilitates the sharing of expertise between the operations teams and Pau to interpret the data and implement any necessary corrective actions. Of course, the overarching aim of all these tools is to continue to increase the ultimate recovery factor.


From the lab to the fieldAs the main R&D hub for Total E&P, the CSTJF is also entrusted with overcoming the technological hurdles that hinder access to frontier resources. This R&D strategy reflects Total’s impressive innovation capabilities. The Group has operations in major sedimentary basins worldwide.

53Projets, croissance et réalisations

Research and pilot applications /

Surging oil prices serve as a reminder that oil and gas are finite resources and that the age of “easy” oil is over. While resources are far from depleted, fast-growing energy demand is spurring operators to explore increasingly challenging and uncharted territory. Opening the way to these new areas is a key mission of the CSTJF, which is one of the few centers in the world capable of redefining feasibility.

As the R&D nerve center for Total E&P and a pivotal player in the extensive network established with research and academic communities in France and worldwide, the CSTJF is present in every field strategic to the future of the energy industry. One of these is extra-heavy oil, whose recoverable reserves are thought to be roughly equal to conventional reserves. In this area, the decisive issue is recovery. Because these resources are viscous to the point of being solid and virtually immobile, conventional production methods are unsuitable. Extracting them requires thermal recovery processes, such as injecting massive amounts of steam into the reservoirs.

55Research and pilot applications

Unraveling deepwater secrets When Girassol came on stream in the Gulf of Guinea offshore Angola in 2001, it was the largest oil field development ever carried out in 1,400 meters of water. Deepwater development continues to advance today in Angola, the Gulf of Mexico, Congo and here, in Nigeria, with the drilling program for the Akpo deepwater project.

20,000 leagues under the sea

A technological firstSubsea processing to separate gas from crude oil and water on the seabed is the major innovation of the Pazflor project now in development in Angola’s deep offshore. The project brings new prospects for cost-effective development of challenging resources, especially heavy or viscous oil in deepwater reservoirs.

The CSTJF’s teams have also mastered the technological challenges of developing ultra-deep offshore resources, which lie in more than 1,500 meters of water. The extremely harsh temperature and pressure conditions that prevail at these depths mean that the technological challenges of this new frontier are on par with the conquest of space. However, although man has walked on the moon, the ocean floor is destined to remain beyond his reach. At these depths, production systems can only be installed by remote-controlled robots equipped with onboard electronics to maintain permanent, real-time links with a floating “command center” on the surface.

Access to sour gas, another valuable resource for the future, is contingent on the development of new sweetening processes. Nearly 40% of the world’s gas reserves contain acid species — carbon dioxide (CO2) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S) — in concentrations too high to be processed by conventional means, for both financial and environmental reasons. At the forefront of research in this area, the CSTJF is also focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2. Venting the acid component to the atmosphere once it has been separated from the methane is not an option, leaving open the question of what can be done with it. Furthermore, with combustion being an unavoidable part of oil production, ways have to be found to avoid the emission of tons of additional CO2 per year. One of the most promising solutions is CO2 capture and geological storage (CCS), a challenge being met in Pau with a pilot project unmatched in the world. Designed to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of CCS technology, the unit will store 150,000 metric tons of CO2 in a depleted reservoir near the Lacq natural gas field.


Extra-heavy oilThe CSTJF’s research on recovering and upgrading extra-heavy oil has been applied in the gigantic Petro Cedeño project, which in 2002 marked the start of large-scale production of these non-conventional crudes in Venezuela. The bitumen is converted to a light synthetic crude using a pioneering upgrader unit.


Gas, a strategic priorityTotal is a partner in the Dolphin project to produce gas from the huge North Field offshore Qatar. The Group is strongly committed to all promising gas monetization technologies, from production to marketing, with a particular strategic focus on liquefied natural gas.

Deeply buried reservoirs lying as much as 4,000 meters beneath the surface are another priority avenue of investigation. Although traditionally regarded as unsuitable for production because they are usually highly compacted by the geological layers stacked thousands of meters above them, these reservoirs sometimes retain their production potential. Understanding the geological processes that allowed their preservation is imperative for selecting the right targets.

This brief overview would not be complete without a mention of the complex issue of so-called tight gas reservoirs, whose low porosity and permeability hinder the migration of the gas they contain. Accordingly, a dedicated R&D program includes work on innovative seismic monitoring methods and developing technologies to create artificial pathways by fracturing the rock to enable the gas to flow. Like all of the Center’s other R&D programs, this one has the stated ambition of expanding the world’s oil and gas supply in a sustainable, environmentally-safe manner.


Breakthrough technologyWith the Sprex® technology, the CSTJF has once again demonstrated its continuous innovation capabilities in the field of sour gas. The process is specifically designed to sweeten extremely sour gas resources in the Middle East, as yet untapped due to the lack of a viable technology. Sprex® is the key component of an environmentally sound gas treatment chain.

Shedding light on subsea salt structures


Continuous innovationAdvances in seismic imaging now allow geophysicists to “see” things that were invisible barely a decade ago. For example, new calculation codes for seismic depth imaging developed by the CSTJF have shed light on salt structures impervious to more conventional imaging. This is just one of many examples of innovative power at work.

A regional hub /In 1951, exploratory drilling led to the discovery of the giant Lacq natural gas field. This and ensuing discoveries met up to 90% of France’s natural gas demand and helped shape the economic and industrial destiny of this region of southwestern France. With the establishment of the CSTJF as well as many of Total’s partners and contractors in Pau, the city and the region have emerged as a hub for the oil, gas and related industries.

Between gas production, chemicals manufacturing, gas storage and distribution, Total accounts for more than 3,000 direct jobs at its facilities in Pau and Lacq. In addition to the CSTJF personnel , the region’s workforce includes employees of Total E&P France (TEPF), the subsidiary that operates the Lacq gas field; Total Petrochemicals, whose Mont-Lacq site is home to Total’s petrochemicals R&D; and Total Infrastructures Gaz France (TIGF), also based in Pau. TIGF specializes in natural gas storage and transmission, manages a pipeline system serving fourteen départements in southwestern France, and operates two underground gas storage facilities in Lussagnet and Izaute, which together account for nearly 25% of French capacity. It also manages the interconnectors with the Spanish pipeline network.

As the founder of a major chemicals hub, Total has been acting on a commitment made many years ago to prepare for the “post-gas” industrial redeployment of Lacq, now that the reservoir is nearing depletion. By promoting the establishment of fine chemicals companies through Société Béarnaise de Gestion Industrielle (SOBEGI, set up by Total in 1975), and supporting small business startups (via Total Développement Régional, a spin-off of SOFREA, initially set up by Elf in Pau in 1978), it has already helped to create 5,000 jobs in the Lacq region.

The CSTJF is a pillar of the region’s economic and social fabric, and a prominent partner of the scientific community in southwestern France, through its diversified, extensive R&D activities. The Pau metropolitan area has earned a special place in petroleum research thanks to the French Petroleum Institute (IFP) and the laboratories of a local school, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, which collaborate within the framework of IPRA, a multidisciplinary institute of applied research for the oil and gas industry. At the national level, the CSTJF is involved in some sixty R&D contracts with researchers at universities in Pau, Montpellier, Marseille, Provence, Toulon and Bordeaux, top engineering schools and various institutes and laboratories. Research spans a wide variety of topics. In addition, Total is funding two units based at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour that have introduced a new type of collaboration between the CSTJF and academic research. Founded in 2002, the Organisme Pétrolier de Recherche Appliquée en Géophysique (OPERA) specializes in new processing algorithms for seismic imaging, while the Centre Huile Lourde Ouvert et Expérmental (CHLOE), set up in 2007, focuses on evaluating and improving various processes to recover extra-heavy oil.

65A regional hub

A member of the communityIn addition to being a driving force in Pau’s economy, Total participates actively in community life through its culture- and sports-related corporate philanthropy initiatives. A partner of the training center for the Pau rugby team and a sponsor of the Grand Prix de Pau, Total also supports outreach programs run by the city’s orchestra on behalf of young audiences and contributes to the preservation of Pau’s heritage in cooperation with the Heritage Foundation.

67A regional hub

Key figures /

69Key figures

27 hectares

30 buildings 85,000 sq. m of floor area, consisting of:

60,000 sq. m of offices

18,000 sq. m of laboratory space in four dedicated buildings

1,900 sq. m dedicated to supercomputers

21 videoconference rooms

40 GWh/year of power consumption

1,850 employees

550 service providers on site permanently or on short-term assignments

35 nationalities represented

150 teraflops of global computing power, a capacity of

150 trillion floating-point operations per second

600 scientific and technical workstations

300 Linux or Unix servers

500 technical PCs

6.2 MVA of uninterruptible power supply

20 gigabits per second of capacity for the local telecommunications network

1,250 sites connected to the worldwide private telecommunications network

200 visitors per day on business

100 foreign delegations hosted per year

2,000 airplane tickets for France and abroad issued every month

27 hectares dedicated to research and development

71Key figures

Down to the last dropLocated in the heart of the Béarn region in southwestern France, the birthplace of the French oil and gas industry, the CSTJF is among a handful of industrial centers worldwide capable of devising cost-effective, environmentally-sound technologies that will keep the taps open indefinitely.

Total is a global energy producer and provider with operations in more than 130 countries and a workforce of 96,400 employees worldwide.

Total’s activities span the oil and gas chain, from oil and gas exploration, development and production to refining and marketing, the gas midstream, and crude oil and petroleum product trading and shipping. The Group is also a top-tier producer of base and specialty chemicals. In addition, Total is active in coal mining, cogeneration and power generation. It is also working to secure the future through its commitment to developing renewable energies and alternative fuels. Total’s global reach and energy and chemical operations mean that it is directly impacted by today’s most compelling economic, social and environmental issues. Total has pledged to meet a set of tangible corporate social and environmental responsibility targets. The main challenges of its obligations as a producer are to provide a sustainable response to growing energy demand, ensure the safety of its operations while limiting their environmental impacts, tackle climate change, promote human rights, respect local communities and drive host country development.

A crucial link in the energy chain /

A crucial link in the energy chain /

73A crucial link in the energy chain

Creative concept and layout: – Photo credits: Michaël Banert, Laurent Baratier, Pierre Bessard, Patrick Boulen, Marco Dufour, Guy Jeffroy/Flash Press, Gilles Leimdorfer/Rapho, Peter Livermore, Éric Miller/RÉA, Marc Roussel – Graphic design: Jean-Pascal Donnot – © Total – December 2008.

TOTAL Brochure Cstjf En

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