Appointed Managing Director of Société nationale d’opérations pétrolières de Côte d’Ivoire (PETROCI) on Tuesday July 18, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo replaces former Managing Director Vamissa Bamba, who took up his post on August 6, 2021.
Founded in 1975, PETROCI Holding’s main objective is to “Build an integrated and diversified petroleum economy, by optimizing efforts to find and develop hydrocarbon resources” in Côte d’Ivoire . PETROCI Holding’s main missions are, on the one hand, to find and exploit hydrocarbon deposits and, on the other, to store, trade and transport all petroleum products.
A well specialist and highly accomplished project manager, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo boasts a remarkable 20-year career in optimizing drilling, completion and production operations worldwide in the oil sector. She has worked for oil multinationals such as TotalEnergies, Schlumberger and Halliburton, holding senior positions in 12 countries in Africa, the United States, Europe and Asia, gaining in-depth knowledge of international operations and the ability to navigate diverse cultural and regulatory landscapes.
She has implemented cutting-edge technologies and best practices to improve well performance and reservoir recovery in various companies, including TotalEnergies, OMV Petrom and Schlumberger Completion Services.
Seasoned Total Energies executive
Prior to her appointment, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo had been working for Total Energies in Pau, France, since January 2021, as Corporate Principal Wells Engineering, in Project Management: Reservoir-Well Interface. She was promoted to this position to ensure the allocation of resources to projects as well as prepare and control budgets related to drilling reservoirs, while supporting Total Energies’ global operations in any of the group’s 54 subsidiaries that require it. Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo’s responsibilities included stimulating innovation and facilitating the successful implementation of new technologies. She was also responsible for coaching, mentoring and managing a team of well engineering professionals, providing advice, support and feedback on their performance.
From September 2017 to January 2021, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo held the position of Senior Well Intervention Engineer at Total Energies, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.
In this role, she led the engineering team and oversaw the budget preparation process for all completion and intervention operations. She also provided onshore support to the frontline team leader on site, managing workovers, well interventions, completions and interfaces with the facility management and operations teams. Completion of a well is the set of operations required to finish the well, enabling it to be put into service as efficiently as possible, whether for production, injection or observation.
Before being based in Scotland, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo held the same position in Algeria, from July 2016 to September 2017. In this role, her responsibilities included managing completion programs for onshore wells in tight reservoirs and supervising rig-less and well intervention operations for onshore wells in tight reservoirs, to ensure optimal production.
Career start at Schlumberger
Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo holds an Executive MBA from the Hult International Business School in Boston, USA, and a Master’s degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Institut national polytechnique Houphouët-Boigny in Yamoussoukro (INP-HB). She began her career at Schlumberger (now SLB), where she worked for nearly 7 years (November 2003 to July 2010) on various sites and in various countries, including Vechta (Germany), Longview (USA), Ravenna (Italy), Aberdeen (Scotland), Kome (Chad), and Pointe-Noire (Congo). In this position, she worked with Schlumberger customers such as Eni, Total, Murphy, Addax, CNRI, Murphy, Maurel & Prom, Perenco, providing technical design, execution and evaluation of technical operations.
Subsequently, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo collaborated with Halliburton, for 11 months, as a consultant, senior completion engineer, based in Basra, Al Başrah, Iraq. In this capacity, she provided assistance to ENI and Exxon Mobil, providing valuable help in completion engineering and response engineering for Coil Tubing and Slick Line operations. In the oil and gas industry, the term “coiled tubing” refers to a long metal pipe, with a diameter of between 25 and 83 mm, which is supplied on a large reel. Slickline, on the other hand, refers to a single-strand wire that is used to lower a variety of tools into the wellbore for several purposes.
In August 2011, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo joined OMV Petrom, an Austrian company, as Senior Production Engineer, based in Bucharest, Romania. In this position, she actively participated in the Well Review Committee meetings and played a key role in the selection of materials for the High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) wells, ensuring optimum performance and reliability.
After a year and a half with OMV, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo joined Total Energies in January 2013 as Senior Completions Engineer, based in Luanda, Angola. In this position, she notably managed “Pazflor”, TOTAL Angola’s largest and most depleted field and one of the largest oil projects ever in deep water (between 600 and 1200 meters below sea level), with an estimated 144 wells, (drilling and completion of 83). After 3 years with Total Angola, Fatoumata M’Balou Sanogo was posted to Algeria, Scotland and France.
