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1119

Jean Sentenac President, Chief Executive Officer

1. Please describe your company in 5 words? Fuels & Chemicals technologies

Jean Sentenac President, Chief Executive Officer

1. Please describe your company in 5 words?
Fuels & Chemicals technologies


2. What are the main issues you are planning to address in your presentation at the 2013 Russia & CIS Executive Summit?
How to bring local value to the vast O&G resources of CIS countries


3. What do you think was the main accomplishment of Axens in 2012?
Certainly to reach 10 year in a row of undisputed customer satisfaction, while developing leading edge new technologies and products that will be on the market in the near future.


4. What was the hardest strategic decision you had to make in your career?
It is always a hard decision to renounce to one field so you can fully concentrate your resources on another one: in our job of developing processes and products, it is always a pain to give away some of the ideas.


5. How do you assess Axens' interest in Russia & CIS compared to other emerging markets that you target?
Russia & CIS are not emerging markets in the sense that there are here a large number of refineries; for many years the focus was more on upstream activities, today there are many opportunities of improvements in the downstream sector and the technicity is there. Petrochemical industry has also a very large potential. Both industries will benefit from the large gas reserves available. For us is a natural market, which is not far geographically, and to some extend close culturally.


6. Which of the technologies from the Axens extensive portfolio is in your opinion the one that can have the most significant impact to the margins of the refining or petrochemical company that has implemented it?
The immediate answer would certainly be resid upgrading or petrochemical production technologies. But less visible investments such as flexible PolyfuelTM, or our new generation of Impulse catalysts can do also a lot on refineries margins.


7. How do you think your participation at our conferences contributes to your business?
The value of your conferences relies mostly on the quality of the people of the CIS industry you have been able to invite, and certainly at this period of the year, in a warm and relaxed environment.


8. Do you have second thoughts about not working in the financial industry?
Not a single day of my life: to work in the process industry is an always renewed passion.