Our policy is designed to reduce risks by implementing preventive and protective measures, integrating our urban facilities more seamlessly into the surrounding environment, and preparing for emergency situations to lessen the impact of potential accidents.

Our technological risk management process can be represented by a three-tiered pyramid.

The base represents our skills in designing and operating industrial facilities, while the second tier highlights the importance of control processes. Based around safety management systems, the top tier ensures overall consistency and comprehensive assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the risk management process.

Managing risks through fundamental skills

The key safety drivers are preparing technical standards for facility design, ensuring compliance with and improving operating procedures, and managing employee skills.

With this in mind, a Group Safety Guideline on safety-critical operations was issued in 2006. These operations require diligent coordination and planning, additional supervision during the work and the preparation of appropriate emergency procedures.

Enhancing the skills of employees in charge of operating facilities is also a part of the risk management process. We use simulation resources that enable employees to train themselves on new facilities and maintain their skills through practice with existing processes.

Safety management systems

Total deploys safety management systems (SMS) based on industry-recognized organizational principles and best practices. Each unit tailors its SMS to its own requirements, which entails defining a safety policy and objectives, deploying resources, measuring performance and adjusting action plans.

The proportion of Total sites presenting technological risks that are periodically audited in accordance with externally-recognized protocols increased to 76% from 68% during 2006. In addition, our target of virtually 100% coverage of these sites by 2009 has been confirmed.

Safety Management Systems

Deployment and audits in accordance with externally-recognized protocols at
sites presenting technological risks.

Risk analysis and reduction measures

Our measures aim to reduce risks to as low as reasonably practicable. Risks are analyzed during the project design stage, or when significant changes are made to existing facilities. These analyses are periodically reassessed.

Issued in 2004, Group Safety Guideline No. 8 is the formal statement of our risk analysis methodology and is applied across the businesses. In 2006, we used this method to perform new risk analyses for most Seveso-classified Total sites in France, including storage facilities, refineries, and petrochemical plants. These analyses are being used to prepare the Technological Risk Prevention Plans introduced by the French Act of July 30, 2003.

This type of analysis is being extended to all of our sites worldwide. It is compatible with the requirements of U.K. legislation and was used at the Lindsey Oil Refinery to analyze the risks associated with its hydrodesulfurization project for diesel fuels. It is also being used in Exploration & Production activities, and in 2006 was applied at Girassol, Block 3 and Soyo in Angola.

Feedback

Feedback is one of the most effective ways of improving safety. It consists of reporting and sharing information on accidents so that everyone can learn from them.

After each serious accident or near-miss incident, a Safety Feedback Notice is prepared, describing the circumstances and consequences, analyzing the causes and making practical recommendations. Our operational teams use these notices to determine what preventive measures might apply.

Sometimes, the lessons learned from an accident are so wide-ranging that they result in Group-wide action plans.

Emergency preparedness

Total may find itself confronted with a wide array of emergency situations, such as a natural disaster, industrial accident, or security threat. The management of such situations requires a high level of coordination among all units and the fast response of a multidisciplinary network of skills. We have therefore set up a three-tier system :

Emergency Preparedness Organization

Exercises that test the organizational process in view of improving it also contribute to our emergency preparedness. In addition to the regular drills conducted by the sites, large-scale crisis simulation exercises are carried out, involving all three tiers of the crisis management organization and, where possible, outside emergency services.