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Société Havraise des Pétroles Shell site, Petit Couronne - France - © Société Havraise des Pétroles

Auxitec,

local engineering services for industry

The expansion of the French oil and petrochemicals sector, beginning in 1950, led to a period of high
demand for engineering services. In the port city of Le Havre, Marcel Pimont, a draughtsman in the
shipbuilding sector who had turned his hand to the design of industrial pipework, realised that there
were major opportunities to be seized in this field. In 1964, he therefore decided to set up an engineering
company dedicated to the oil, petrochemical and chemical industry. His idea was to provide clients with
locally-based services, in particular for the purpose of revamping their industrial facilities (expansions,
structural alterations and major repairs), something that the major French and international engineering
groups would struggle to do at competitive prices. On the hunt for capital to fund his project, he secured
the backing of the Société Havraise des Pétroles, which agreed to give his idea a trial run. Success was
instantaneous, and in 1966, the firm Auxitec was founded as a subsidiary of the SHP.
The new company grew rapidly in this booming market. Working exclusively for its parent company in its
early days, the firm then began to provide services for all of the major oil companies operating in France,
including Total, Mobil, Esso and Shell. By necessity operating in close proximity to its customers, Auxitec
went where its clients went, opening offices in Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon in the Le Havre area and
in Petit-Couronne near Rouen, and then in Martigues, the site of another major oil complex in southern
France. By the mid-seventies, 10 years after its founding, the company already employed 350 people.

Pierre Michel
CEO of Auxitec until 2017

20 I ARTELIA, 10 YEARS OF EXISTENCE, 100 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE