Yahoo Finance TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 7, 2024
TotalEnergies SE isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Renaud Lions: Good morning. Welcome to TotalEnergies 2023 Results and 2024 Objectives Presentation. We are today in London from the Tate Modern Art Museum. Thanks for coming today and I hope that you will enjoy the view on the city and sample. You can also follow us live on our website, totalenergies.com. We will start today with a safety sequence with Bernard Pinatel, who is our President Refining & Chemicals and then we will have the presentation from Jean-Pierre and Patrick for around 1 hour. And then we’ll move to the Q&A session, we should be finished around 11:30, 11:45. [Operator Instructions] But without further delay, I invite Bernard to come on stage to launch the meeting with the safety sequence. Bernard?
Bernard Pinatel: Thank you, Renaud. Good morning. Last year, I had to deploy two fatalities. As you know, in these two tragic events remind us that our first duty, of course, is to make sure that everyone returns home safe everyday. One fatality occurred in France in a retail station, where a contractor is either passed away when performing some acceleration work. The safety moment I’ve chosen this morning is about the second fatality, the one which occurred in the Silane refinery in the Netherlands, of course, not to describe – just to describe what happened, but most importantly, to share with you what we learned from this tragic event to improve our operations. On February 3, a contractor passed away while he was performing a catalyst and loading operation inside the reactor.
His name was Torsten. He was 50 years old. Changing a catalyst is a very sensitive operation as the catalyst is flammable in the presence of oxygen of air. So you must first inert the reactor with nitrogen before the intervention. The catalyst and loading operation is performed, as you see on the slide, by a team of 3 people led by a supervisor. First, there is a diver who is the one entering into the reactor, fully equipped, of course, including with a lifeline to be pulled out in case of emergency. The second one is the second diver who is ready to dive in case of emergency and there is also a controller who monitors the level of nitrogen of air and keeps constant contact by radio and by video. And before entering into the reactor, of course, there is a video inspection to make sure that the situation is safe.
At 11:15 on that day, the alarm was given by the personnel and we learned that the diver was trapped by the collapse of some catalysts. Of course, the risk team reinforced by additional members fully equipped tried in turn to pull him out of the reactor, which you may guess from the slide is 30-meter high. When the body went out, the team found that the diver passed away. One thing is clear. We couldn’t keep operating this way with a human entry into an inert atmosphere, even if it is the industry standard practice. So, immediately to free actions, of course, we immediately stopped worldwide, all similar operations in the company. Secondly, with our contractors, HSE specialists, technical experts, we reviewed alternative operating modes to avoid any entry, human entry inside reactors for that kind of operation.
And eventually, we identified and selected an alternative operating mode where you change the catalyst by water flooding. What does that mean? It means that you fill the reactor with water and then you emptied together with a catalyst. Of course, this is more costly, because you cannot recover the catalyst to recycle it. And you have to dispose of the waste water, but you will understand this is not really what is at stake. From February 2023, all replacements were performed without any injury. We carried out 21 replacement using water in 2023 and we will have another 14 on the first year of 2024. We also keep working on further improvements in terms of vessel modification, because you will understand that this vessel has now to support the additional weight of water.
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