Congo - Sharing skills
Forests and Climate - Committed to a beneficial environment for humans
Placide Kaya, Director, Ecodurable, with Patrick Bollaert, Director, Environment division, Artelia Eau & Environnement
Placide Kaya is director of écodurable, a design firm in Congo. Total commissioned his company, working in partnership with French firm Artelia, to conduct the impact studies for the Moho Nord site operation project*.
I founded Écodurable, an environmental and social impact study design firm, in 1999. We currently employ 12 people. Over the years, we’ve been asked by several mining companies to support their local operations, and we’ve finetuned our expertise throughout this period. In 2012, Total contacted us about working alongside engineering firm Artelia as part of the Group’s operation project at the Moho Nord* site. The selection process was extremely rigorous. They met with all of the candidate firms before finally selecting our bid. One of the reasons for this selection was our motivated team of young staff. Écodurable trains more interns than any other design firm in Congo. This commitment to training young people is one of my top priorities.
We provide local knowledge, while Total and Artelia train our young experts.
Boosting expertise
On the Moho Nord project, we are supporting Total’s teams in their relationships with the authorities and the local population. Congolese society is extremely rural and many of the projects run here originate in other countries. Our job is to enable all sides understand each other and ensure that Total’s operations take social and environmental considerations into account.
The teams from Artelia, meanwhile, have provided us with a range of tools and methods to help us collect and analyze data. For example, they have helped us to write impact study reports and use geographical data processing techniques to create our own maps. The expertise and best practice we’ve acquired by working alongside Artelia on the ground will improve our own performance in the future and ensure that we are able to meet the needs of our future partners. My ambition is to continue working with Artelia and Total and build upon the trust that we have developed with these partners.
*The Moho Nord project is an ambitious project to access average-sizedhydrocarbon reserves in extremely deep waters. Production is expected to start in 2015, with output reaching 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2017.