The Roads to Carbon Neutral - Season 5 - Episode 9 - Trained in the Elements
The Roads to Carbon Neutral - Season 5 - Episode 9
Trained in the Elements
The Roads to Carbon Neutral
The fifth season of our program entitled “The Roads to Carbon Neutral”, in partnership with CNBC Catalyst, provides an insight into the solutions and innovations making the transition to low-carbon energy a reality and helping us with our net zero approach, together with society. These powerful on-the-ground stories are led by TotalEnergies’ employees.
In this ninth episode, we are heading to the OLEUM training centers belonging to TotalEnergies Learning Solutions, the Company’s training affiliate. Located deep inside TotalEnergies’ industrial sites in Dunkirk and La Mède, these two centers are an integral part of the economic and industrial development projects for both areas. They provide professionals, apprentices, students and employees on retraining schemes with a bespoke range of courses covering the energy industry using life-size facilities, while helping develop the safety culture that represents one of the Company’s core values.
Laurent Giuitta, trainer at OLEUM: I have always been fascinated by the power of the elements. It’s humbling. Offshore, nothing is simple. Whether wind turbines or hydrocarbon platforms, you deal with huge structures, harsh weather, and constant risk. You are remote and high above the sea. You cannot avoid fear. You learn to deal with the expected and also the unexpected.
As a trainer, I see people arriving with fear and leaving with confidence. I take pride in preparing them and securing our energy needs for today and tomorrow.
Dunkirk is famous because it’s the only place in Europe where trainees can practice on real-life facilities. They can practice turbine climbs, water rescue, fire drills. We are training the next generation. We train everyone, from new trainees to experienced people, engineers, all around the world. And they learn the same way, by doing.
We simulate everything: electrical failure, maintenance scenario, operation scenario, fire rescue, because when the time comes, we need people who are already trained. So the time for training is now. The trainees do theory. But the most important is practice. The kind of skills that keep industrial sites, offshore platforms, and people safe every day.
Safety is everything. When it comes to energy production, fire is always a risk. What happens if gas ignites, if there is a spill on land or at sea? We recreate all these moments here. So that when it happens in real life, they know how to react.
Théo, trainee at OLEUM: We were a group and that helped me a lot. Now I have less vertigo, I’m less stressed, I feel more confident thanks to the PPE. Now, I feel safe and ready to do maintenance.
Laurent Giuitta, trainer at OLEUM: We train for precision, for resilience, for teamwork. We are preparing people to take on 1,000 new jobs driving the energy transition.
Near Marseille, we turned a former refinery into a biorefinery, alongside a second Oleum training center. Together, the two sites cover every side of the job.
Judith Sabbah, Manager of the La Mède training center: Our trainers are experienced trainers in the field of fossil energy and renewables. We practice “learning by doing” here. It’s an immersive experience on life-size installations in real conditions. So every gesture counts, every person counts, every second counts.
Stéphane Remy, SVP of the OLEUM Division: The DNA of Oleum is to provide training solutions for industrial operational excellence within the world of Oil & Gas, renewables, and energy transition.
Praise, trainee at OLEUM: I’ve gained more knowledge, I’m more confident, and I know that I can work with integrity.
Stéphane Remy, SVP of the OLEUM Division: We are preparing the future, the young generations for the new industry ambitions regarding electrification, biofuel and renewables.
Laurent Giuitta, trainer at OLEUM: This is where it gets real. You’re in the water, you’re cold, disoriented, but you must act. It’s a dangerous situation, but that’s why we train. We train for chaos so you need to be prepared. Offshore is a very beautiful place to work but can be extremely unforgiving.
When I see trainees today, it reminds me of when I started, a long time ago. We are not just preparing for a job. We are preparing people with the skills and mindset to drive our energy transformation. And that future starts here.
[TotalEnergies logo]
Training to achieve operational excellence in the energy sector
Every year, over 7,000 people from within and outside the Company attend the OLEUM centers in Dunkirk and La Mède to receive training for a career in the energy industry. As explained by Stéphane Remy, SVP of the OLEUM Division at TotalEnergies, OLEUM’s DNA is focused on delivering training solutions with the ability to achieve industrial operational excellence in the oil and gas, renewable energies and energy transition sectors, covering such areas as operations, maintenance, inspections, safety and exploitation.
The unique teaching approach features life-size facilities (climbing turbines, carrying out water rescue exercises, performing maintenance on an educational wind turbine, etc.), combined with hands-on experience and efforts to develop a safety culture.
Developing a safety culture
Whether discovering different careers in industry or working at refineries, biorefineries, offshore platforms, power plants or electricity production sites, industrial operators are faced with a number of hazards, especially weather-related risks.
After studying the theory, trainees put what they have learnt into practice in conditions that are as close to reality as possible. As explained by Laurent Giuitta, a trainer at the Dunkirk and La Mède centers, and Judith Sabbah, Manager of the La Mède training center, every type of scenario is simulated (electrical outages, maintenance scenarios, operational scenarios, industrial site fires, sea rescue missions, etc.) with the aim of giving learners the skills that they need to improve everyday safety at industrial sites and offshore platforms, and especially keep people safe.
Oleum in figures:
Safety: a core value at TotalEnergies
Safety is one of the Company’s core values. The process of producing, transforming and distributing energy entails specific safety risks for our employees, our partner companies’ personnel, and residents living near our operations. Therefore, TotalEnergies’ operational measures and the indicators used to manage its activities are structured around safety, in accordance with the strictest health standards.
The OLEUM training centers help achieve the safety objectives defined by the Company, i.e. zero fatal accidents in our business activities, a permanent reduction in the number of accidents, measures to safeguard the health of our employees in the workplace, and steps to prevent the occurrence of a major industrial accident.
We’re not just preparing for jobs, we’re preparing people with the skills and mindset to drive our energy transformation.Laurent Giuitta OLEUM Trainer
The Roads to Carbon Neutral
