Preserving the Environment

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Preserving water resources

Realizing that water is a finite natural resource, we strive to optimize our consumption and improve the quality of our effluent discharge. We are also stepping up our prevention plans and programs to combat marine and freshwater pollution.

Reducing our use of water

The urgent need to decrease our water consumption applies to all our businesses.
Since 2007, our action has been backed by a methodology guide disseminated throughout our organization. It describes the best practices identified in our various entities to help sites define their water reduction targets for the medium term.
We are focusing in particular on sites where industrial water requirements compete with other beneficial uses such as household consumption and agriculture.

Preserving water quality

Oil is extracted from the reservoir mixed with water (produced water). In fact, roughly one barrel of water is extracted for every barrel of oil produced. And the proportion of water increases as fields age.
Our priority is to reinject produced water into the reservoirs. Our R&D teams are developing technologies to allow maximum use of this option. The aims are to maintain reservoir pressure thereby increasing oil recovery (water acts as a piston and pushes the oil toward the wells), and to promote water recycling, thereby curbing both use and discharge. That means implementing sophisticated processes, including membrane ultrafiltration, to ensure that the recycled water will not interfere with reservoir permeability (by clogging the "micro-channels" that run through the reservoir) or impede the flow of oil towards the well.
If reinjection is not feasible, water is treated before being discharged into the sea. For each site, we limit the hydrocarbon content of discharged water to 30 mg/l offshore and 10 mg/l in onshore and inshore areas.

More generally, we are implementing improvement programs and encouraging the widespread use of best practices in wastewater treatment in our various entities. Facilities are modified or retrofitted as needed to support these action plans, on a case-by-case basis.
At the Feyzin refinery (France), the construction of a dissolved-air flotation unit and an overhaul of the system to recover oil from process water have lowered the hydrocarbon content of effluent discharge. At the Grandpuits refinery, improved wastewater management through increased recycling has reduced both the facility's water use and discharge (by 17%).

Trace pollutants and hazardous substances are the focus of especially close attention. In 2009, we began research into hazardous substances at all our major Chemicals sites in Europe. Work on hazardous substances is continuing in 2010 with in situ analysis programs.
Through these initiatives, we are acting ahead of the trend toward tighter chemical and environmental quality requirements for receiving watercourses (oceans and rivers) as observed in many countries' regulations on liquid effluent discharge (for example, the European Water Framework Directive).

For your information
84% of our operated hydrocarbon production is extracted in offshore (high seas) and inshore areas.

Fighting marine and freshwater pollution

Prevention is a pillar of our action.
Aspects of prevention include the strict vetting process we apply when selecting the vessels we charter, the choice of routes and ports that limit the risk of accidents, our very regular maintenance and inspection operations, the use of leak detection devices and the implementation of specific procedures for vessel berthing and loading/offloading operations - tricky maneuvers that are a potential source of many incidents or accidents.
Whenever one of our sites poses a risk of marine or freshwater pollution, we have set up appropriate and constantly updated emergency response procedures with the assistance of external experts (CEDRE* in France). We also conduct regular training sessions and drills in actual emergency conditions with the assistance of the competent authorities (fire departments, harbor masters' offices, national navies, etc.).
In 2009, we rolled out a self-assessment tool at all sites to allow them to evaluate their degree of pollution response readiness.
In order to intervene rapidly anywhere in the world, we have emergency response procedures in place that can be activated 24/7. We also have assistance agreements with bodies that have pollution response equipment (Oil Spill Response, whose scope covers most of the world's seas and oceans, and Clean Caribbean & Americas which covers the Caribbean and Latin America zone).

The FOST (Fast Oil Spill Team)

Based near Marseille, France, the Fast Oil Spill Team (FOST) is one of Total's internal resources for responding quickly to water pollution incidents. It has pollution control equipment and can act in European and West African waters. The team is staffed with firefighters seconded from the Marseille marine fire department. The FOST is accredited to train field response teams. It regularly provides training and conducts equipment deployment drills at our sites.

*CEDRE : Centre de documentation, de recherche et d'expérimentation sur les pollutions accidentelles des eaux, a French organization that conducts research on accidental water pollution, pollution prevention and spill monitoring.

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