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Talking with Jean-François Minster
Jean-François Minster, Scientific Director, Total
 What are Total’s main research and development interests?
Our research and development focuses on the major operational challenges in our core businesses. One prime objective is to improve our knowledge of oil resources, both conventional and non-conventional, and of other resources such as biomass and renewable energies. Another objective is to develop the appropriate production technologies for using them. In Refining & Marketing and Chemicals, our R&D teams support the innovation strategy to consolidate or broaden Total’s manufacturing capabilities and market positions. Reducing environmental impacts and making our products more energy efficient is a third major area of focus.
For example, the increasingly higher mileage and lower emissions performance of today’s fuels has been driven by a massive R&D push by Refining & Marketing. R&D also helps us to improve industrial processes, making facilities safer and more reliable and curtailing the environmental impact of our operations, on water, soil and the air.
Controlling residual gas emissions, especially greenhouse gases, is, of course, a crucial issue. We’re working on it upstream, on our oil platforms and in our plants and refineries, and further downstream in our products.
Can you describe Total’s integrated R&D resources?
We have 20 R&D centers: nine in Exploration & Production in Europe, the Middle East and North America, three in Refining & Marketing in Europe and eight in Chemicals in Europe, Asia and the United States. They employ 4,200 engineers and technicians, of which more than 3,400 work for Chemicals. The R&D budget totalled €568 million in 2006. Total has 500 funding contracts with universities and research organizations, 300 in France and 200 in the rest of the world. Why so much cooperative research? Cooperative research is a central focus of our R&D strategy. It gives us access to scientific and technical capabilities far superior to what we would have if we relied solely on our own R&D, even as extensive as it already is.
What form does this cooperation take? Our cooperation with academic research takes several forms, includingconsultations, financial support and partnerships. We’re constantly calling on scientific advisors in specific disciplines or topics.
We also lead well-defined, short-term projects, through doctoral theses or post-doctoral work, for example. Additionally, we support academic laboratories or departments in research programs that combine various projects they’ve put together to explore an issue defined by Total, usually in liaison with other companies. We start with a question that interests us, but we make sure that we tap the knowledge, tools and especially ideas of our academic partners.
One illustration of the rationale behind this kind of business-academic partnership are the Joint Industry-Funded Projects (JIPs) that are fairly common in US universities. We also work on a long-term basis with strategic partners, because that’s how scientific progress is made.
This may lead to exclusive or non-exclusive agreements with laboratories on subjects that are especially important or critical for future progress. We have agreements of this kind in various countries, notably Russia. This type of project is carefully tracked, either by our core businesses, the Science Division or the Sustainable Development and Environment Division. Lastly, we also endow a number of university teaching chairs. The combined effect of looming peak oil and the growing importance of the climate issue has made the future of energy a widely discussed public concern. How much emphasis do you place on research to find alternatives to oil and gas? In recent years, we’ve initiated more than 10 R&D partnerships on technologies to convert biomass. In solar power, our R&D is helping to reduce the amount of silicon required to make solar panels, for example, by using “thin film” technology, which reduces silicon content by 90%. We’re also working to develop liquid hydrocarbons from heavy oil, natural gas, coal or biomass, which could one day provide an alternative to conventional fuels. Plus, we’re continuing to conduct hydrogen R&D.
On the issue of climate change, which is critical for a company like Total, the Sustainable Development and Environment Division has been supporting a research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for several years. Agreements have also been signed regarding several R&D projects on CO2 capture and sequestration. We’ve also just launched our own CO2 capture and sequestration pilot in Lacq, a first in France.
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