EFN: Mr Sentenac, how did you come to be involved in this new group?

Mr Jean Sentenac: I joined IFP in the summer of 2000 to bring together IFP’s Technology Licensing Division and Procatalyse (Catalysts and Adsorbents), a subsidiary of ISIS. I came from the chemical and process industries and have a background in engineering and business in the chemicals and fine chemicals sectors. I also am a graduate of the IFP School, a graduate school in petroleum science. The directors of the two companies felt that someone from the outside could bring in some new experience and help the merger to proceed more efficiently and more effectively.

EFN: Did you have a precise task initially?

JS: My initial contract was, and still is, to build a major technology company that licences catalyst technology and provides products and services to the refining, petrochemical and gas processing industries. Our vision is to become the technology benchmark for the customers of these industries. The justification for this is that both of the initial companies serve the same customers – although they may be dealing with different parts of the same company, i.e. purchasing and technology evaluation. It is recognised that, in the past, the development of a new product or process with new catalysts had invariably involved the two companies as affiliates of the same organisation. Now we are working together and improving performance by combining experience and providing a clearer vision of the future for our R&D teams.

EFN: How did the merger go?

JS: We started work on the merger in October 2000 and it was effective from 1 July 2001. A new company – Axens - was created, wholly owned by IFP. The aim by the end of 2001 was to develop new joint working processes. A main field in which we are working together is in customer relations, where we are developing more effective communications with our customers.

From the beginning, we gathered together everything that was technology licensing and engineering related into one group (Process Licensing) and everything that was product related into a second group (Procatalyse Catalysts & Adsorbents). We then created a third business unit, Performance Programs, which has the objective of assisting customers in the operation of their plant. This is something that we did to some extent before, but by creating Performance Programs, we are putting more emphasis on helping customers to reduce operating costs and to improve the operation and reliability of their process units. Our goal is to provide the maximum value to them so that they want to come back.

EFN: How have you been able to do this?

JS: We have expanded our range of services to include aspects such as consultancy and software packages. These are things that we were not doing previously, but have now been able to launch as it was a logical step within the new operation. In reality, I believe that it has been more a case of strengthening and building upon what we have rather than taking a major new direction. We want to ensure that our units operate as effectively as possible and to the maximum financial benefits for our customers.

EFN: Can you draw upon resources from within the Group?

JS: Yes. Indeed this is another important advantage that we have. For example, improving hydrogen use within a refinery. We can carry out an audit and then make recommendations using other group companies, such as RSI or IPEDEX.

EFN: What about research?

JS: This is an important area for us. We look to our research teams to provide us with new ideas and also to take the feedback from the market and to use it to build upon the synergies from within our new organisation. Before, we had two organisations - one knowledgeable in catalysis and the other in processes - operating independently. Today they are situated in the same building and there is a strong interaction between the technical teams. We can build enormously upon the joint strengths of this united team.

Basic catalyst research and new development work is carried out at the IFP research centre just outside Paris, located in Rueil-Malmaison. Pilot plant test facilities for testing new catalysts and developing new processes and process know-how are located at the IFP Research and Industrial Development Centre in Solaize, near Lyon. Scale-up of catalysts and adsorbents from laboratory to industrial production is done by the Axens team at our catalyst and adsorbents manufacturing facilities at Salindres, near Nîmes.

EFN: How did the two companies react to the merger?

JS: As with any such merger, there is always some resistance to change, some fear of the unknown. Since we have come together physically into one building, this feeling has evaporated and a real positive atmosphere has developed. The big thing has been the feedback from the customers. This has been very positive and has been welcomed in the marketplace. Some people say that 50% of all marriages fail – we now know that we are in the 50% that will not. We went out of our way to involve people right from the start and this, I believe, has been the key to our success. In a business like ours, where human resources are king, it is the only way forward.

EFN: So what does the new organisation look like?

JS: Axens is organised along three business units, which use common operational and functional groups. The business units Process Licensing, Procatalyse Catalysts & Adsorbents and Performance Programs are served by the operational groups, which are: Tech Services, Technology and Marketing & Business Development.

The US entity, Axens North America has the same organisation but is decentralised on two sites: Princeton and Houston. The Axens North America Business Units co-ordinate directly with the Business Units in Rueil-Malmaison. As a general rule, Axens North America has sales and marketing responsibilities for the US, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, Columbia and Ecuador geographical zones. For specific technologies where technical competence is centred in one location, there can be zone crossovers. For example for the H-Oil technology, which was acquired with the purchase of HRI in Princeton, Axens North America covers the globe, whereas for BTX Aromatics technologies, Axens SA (France) has world-wide coverage. Both Axens North America and Axens SA offer the full range of technologies, products and services available.

EFN: Can you tell us a bit more concerning Axens North America?

JS: Axens NA is a fully owned subsidiary of Axens SA and is the result of the merger of IFP NA (Princeton with an office in Houston), IFP Enterprises (Princeton) and Procatalyse US (Houston). Armand Koskas is the CEO of the company and is also the Managing Director of the Process Licensing Business Unit in North America, which is based in Princeton. Rob Dallhoff is the Managing Director of the Procatalyse Catalysts & Adsorbents Business Unit in Axens NA, which is centralised in Houston. The Houston offices of the Process Licensing and Procatalyse Catalysts & Adsorbents BUs have been combined at the same Houston sites along with the US Tech Services personnel. There is daily communications between the US and French based groups, so that there is no time lag in information transfer. We transfer personnel between the groups and are able to outsource to one another when the workload shifts.

EFN: Have you seen any benefits so far of the new company?

JS: As far as direct benefits from the merger are concerned, we now have a single market vision with a single communications channel with R&D resulting in a clearer vision and improved response time. We also have a sharing in technical information, which affords better standards for our technical feasibility proposals. We now find ourselves with a healthy production backlog and in a hiring regime, which is ideal during this difficult economic period for many companies.

EFN: Have you had any major commercial successes since the merger?

JS: Our first major success, under the Axens name, has been in Oman. The Sultanate of Oman Government will implement a gasoline sulphur reduction programme in its new refinery at Sohar using the Axens Prime-G+ process to treat its RFCC gasoline, the main sulphur contributor to the gasoline pool. This technology will be combined with light naphtha etherification technology from Fortum.

When we heard that we had won the contract, Jean-Claude Barbier, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are extremely pleased that the Oman Government has selected Axens' Prime-G+ solution for their gasoline sulphur reduction strategy. This technology has been widely accepted in the industry as evidenced by its phenomenal market success over the past twelve months in Europe and in North America. It's also for us a great pleasure that the first license of our new venture, Axens, is being signed in Oman."

EFN: How has the Prime-G+ process gone?

JS: The Prime-G+ process, tailored for the treatment of FCC gasoline, is the runaway market leader for this application. At present, we have 44 licenses for this technology for a total production of well over 1 mb/d of "green" FCC gasoline. We have recently expanded our sulphur reduction process line through a partnership with BP to include the OATS technology for reducing FCC gasoline sulphur content while maintaining product octane. This is just one example of how we see the new company moving forward into the 21^st century.

EFN: Mr Sentenac, thank you.