The preservation of air quality is one of our top priorities everywhere we operate. To meet the challenge of preserving residents' health and maintaining balanced local ecosystems, we have set ambitious targets to reduce atmospheric emissions from both our operated facilities and our products.
Our action guidelines: prevent, reduce, and improve
Because it is impossible to completely eliminate these emissions at the source, we take curative measures as well. These measures are designed to extract and capture releases around our installations.
- SO2: Some of our refineries are equipped with strippers that separate SO2 from the gas stream.
- NOX: All of our refineries and petrochemical plants are fitted with low NOX burners.
- VOCs: This is an issue in our Exploration & Production operations in particular, primarily due to flaring. To resolve this issue effectively, we have made a commitment to reduce routine flaring by 80% between 2010 and 2020 and to phase the practice out completely by 2030.
In 2017, we reached our target of reducing SO2 emissions by 50%.
At the same time, we are developing increasingly high-performance products to reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions. In Europe, transportation accounts for half of all NOX emissions. Our teams are taking action by developing new automotive products that are more effective and less polluting
AdBlue®: Leveraging Our Expertise to Reduce Nitrogen Oxide Emissions
Our teams have developed a solution known as AdBlue® made of urea (32.5%) and demineralized water (67.5%) that helps reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel-powered vehicles such as trucks, buses or garbage trucks by 85%. Used in vehicles equipped with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology, AdBlue® converts the NOX into nitrogen and steam.
As part of our continuous improvement approach, we ensure that our operators understand the importance of air quality issues and train them in best emissions-control practices. They apply enhanced procedures and are backed by sophisticated emissions-detection equipment that provides precise tracking indicators.
And because emissions can only be successfully reduced through collective action, we actively participate in international initiatives to preserve air quality.
