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Renewal of Olivier Appert's appointment as Chairman and CEO
18 October 2006
A ministerial order has renewed Olivier Appert's appointment as chairman of the IFP board of directors.
After graduating from France's École Polytechnique and École des Mines, Oliver Appert began his career in the Lyons Department of Mines before holding various positions in the Ministry of Industry and the Prime Minister's Cabinet. He was then appointed Deputy Cabinet Director for the Minister of Industry, from 1984 to 1986. In 1987, he became Head of Strategy at Télécommunications Radioélectriques et Téléphoniques (TRT). Appointed Director of Hydrocarbons in the Ministry of Industry in 1989, Oliver Appert joined the senior management of IFP in 1994 as Head of Research and Development. In 1998, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer at Isis, a technology holding company of which IFP was a shareholder. In 1999, he became Director of Long-term Cooperation and Energy Policy Analysis at the International Energy Agency (IEA). Olivier Appert has been IFP's Chairman and CEO since April 2003.
Now endowed with the official status of a state-funded industrial and commercial establishment, IFP was established in 1944 with the aim of helping to build a strong, independent petroleum service & supply and oil industry in France. Industrial development of IFP research findings has resulted in the foundation of about thirty companies, thereby creating jobs and generating exports. Examples include Technip, Coflexip, CGG, Beicip and, more recently, Axens, specialist provider of refining technologies, catalysts and services for the oil & gas industries.
Today's changing energy landscape is mainly the result of growing world demand, a gradual levelling out of oil and gas production, environmental constraints and the difficulty of replacing oil and gas both rapidly and on a large scale in the transport and petrochemicals fields.
Against this backdrop, the government's mission for IFP is to assist the transport and petrochemicals sectors in making a smooth transition to the energies and materials of the future. The aim is to devise now technologies that will optimise oil & gas use, while developing new solutions to gradually take their place.
To meet this challenge, IFP, under Olivier Appert's leadership, has focused its strategy over the last four years on five complementary objectives:
- Push back the limits in oil and gas exploration and production;
- Convert a maximum of raw materials into energy for transport;
- Diversify fuel sources;
- Develop clean, fuel-efficient vehicles;
- Capture and store CO2 to combat the greenhouse effect.
The results of this strategy are already clearly seen in IFP's strong involvement in new energy technologies – in particular CO2 capture and storage, biofuels and hydrogen - and a significant contribution to work on these issues in the Système Français de Recherche et d'Innovation (ANR, AII, competitiveness hubs and the Label Carnot) and as part of European projects.
Contact presse IFP
Anne-Laure de Marignan
Phone : + 33 (0)1 47 52 62 07
Fax : + 33 (0)1 47 52 70 96
press@ifp.fr
