The supply chain of Total

Thèmes abordés

supply chain, logistics, total

Résumé du document

Total S.A. is a French oil company, founded in 1924, and one of the six "Supermajor oil companies in the world". The term supermajor refers to the six largest energy companies, International Oil Company (IOC): British Petroleum (UK), Chevron Corporation (USA), ConocoPhillips (USA), ExxonMobil (USA), Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands/UK) and Total (France).

The oil business of Total covers the entire oil chain, from crude oil exploration and production to transportation, oil product marketing, crude oil and product trading and finally distribution.
In this essay, we will try to understand the three parts of Total's logistics: the logistics of crude oil procurement, the logistics of production and the logistics of oil products distribution.

The group has at its disposal an integrated refining tool among the most competitive and well adapted ones to the new European standards on the specifications of oil products.
Crude oil, liquefied natural gas, chemicals or oil products are transported everyday from the producer to the consumer. To do so, Total uses more than 21,000 kilometres of pipelines in the five continents and almost 200 ports and terminals worldwide.

Extraits

[...] The whole pipeline installation is controlled from a central point, the control system; true nerve centre of the operating system. The control system coordinates in real time and 24-7 all the operations necessary to the execution of the plans of pumping transmitted by planning. It also ensures the video surveillance of the installation network. The central system uses a system of remote control made to remotely operate all the automated installations of the pipeline network: the SCADA system which stand for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. [...]

[...] The size of a tank can reach up to 60,000 m3. Each depot has between 3 and 12 filling points for trucks. These tank-trucks transport up to 30 tons of one or more products, thanks to a system of compartments. The last point concerning storage is that this function has also to deal with incidents that can occur during restocking. Total can experiments delays, the request can be abnormally stronger than the usual, bad weather can block trucks and Total has also to deal with the great French tradition for strikes that can block oil depot for days A threshold of alarm will be thus made up to avoid these risks, it represents in volume the sum of minimum stock + strategic stock Production logistics Between the brown and viscous liquid practically unusable extracted from the ground, and the product that fuel the engine of a car, is the refining process. [...]

[...] In Europe, the Group transports by road, train and through pipelines 80 million tons of oil products each year. On a logistics point of view, the objective is to improve the transportation of the products as well as the safety of the operations from oil wells to gas stations. II- Logistics at Total The objective of the logistics function at Total is to organise, at the lowest possible costs, at the best location and at the best time, the customer's delivery through logistics flows: - Physical flows: routing of crude oil thanks to a sophisticated network of transportation and storage network. [...]

[...] Perfectly controlling all the different steps of the supply chain thanks to estimation and forecast tools as well as location and inventory tools, has helped Total to have a very efficient logistics network and a very high service level for years. References - Furman, K., Pardalos, P. (2006) Optimisation and logistics challenges in the enterprises. - Klatch, W. (2005) - Supply chain for liquids: out of the box approaches to liquid logistics Taylor & Francis - IBM Consulting Services Website (2005) - Downstream petroleum supply chains: incremental optimization leads to greatest gains. Available from: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/au/gbs/bus/pdf/g510-6366-downstream- petro.pdf - Lang, A. (2008) Oil and Gas: Is the future bright? [...]

[...] However, globalisation has brought free trade agreements and other zones of controlled trade. The European Union thus simplified the declaratory obligations to convey goods. It means a reduction in the costs of transportation at the same time as a greater flexibility in its organisation. In order to maximise the efficiency of its international activities, Total has divided its pathway into two sectors, the upstream and the downstream: The “upstream” sector of Total consists in the activities of exploration, development and production of hydrocarbons. [...]