TOTAL APPROACH

TAKING THE LEAD

Karine Singh, managing director, TotalEnergies Marketing Middle East speaks to T&FME about pioneering lubricating solutions and being at the forefront of the region’s mobility and energy transition

From the sale of jetfuel at Dubai World Central airport to providing special fluids for specialised applications such as drilling, TotalEnergies Marketing Middle East (TEMME) has been at the forefront of the UAE regional energy and downstream oil and gas industries for over three decades.

TEMME is a fully owned subsidiary of TotalEnergies, and since setting up in Dubai in 1989 has been tasked with the manufacturing and marketing of the French multinational energy firm’s extended range of automotive, industrial, marine lubricants and greases. Active in 14 countries across the Middle East and Central Asian region, it also exports lubricants and greases to more than forty TotalEnergies affiliates in Africa and Asia.

Karine Singh, managing director, TotalEnergies Marketing Middle East (TEMME) oversees its regional operation, as well as leads the firm’s own transformation of its portfolio of activities to support the transformation of mobility in the region.

After two decades of working in TotalEnergies – and a career that has spanned marketing, business development, strategy, M&A, supply chain and customer service, as well as time in France and Hong Kong – the keen yoga practitioner is bringing an assured and controlled touch to the operation as the market undergoes this period of huge disruption.

Sitting down with T&FME, the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris in France graduate and first female managing director of TEMME, talks to the magazine about how both the company and the region’s automotive sector is changing.

The ‘Total’ brand had to be one of the most recognised in the energy industry before it was rebranded as TotalEnergies in May 2021 – why was it important to make the change at this particular time?

Total has been an integrated actor in the energy space for close to a hundred years. The Company’s renaming last year sent a clear message about a change in strategy. It is moving from oil and gas towards a multi-energies with a hope to occupy a space in renewables like solar, wind energies and in electric vehicle charging. TotalEnergies aims at becoming one of the top five renewable company by 2030.

your ongoing vision and mission in the region?

Our vision at TEMME is to become a trusted partner in mobility transition while strengthening our leadership position in lubricants in the region. We are, for instance, developing products and solutions to optimise the total cost of ownerships (TCOs) for our lubricants customers. We are also looking at developing wash, technical and electric mobility services.

How does TEMME see its role in helping the region and the industries it works with achieve their climate and mobility goals?

The new name illustrates the company’s new ambition of becoming a world-class player in the energy transition and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 together with society.

Our company is transforming its business activities to deliver tangible and long-term solutions to address a dual challenge: more energies, less emissions.

TotalEnergies is for instance developing its presence across the entire renewable electricity chain. In the UAE, our colleagues of TotalEnergies Solar Distributed Generation and TotalEnergies Renewable International are proposing solar solutions for a varied range of requirements.

As regards to TEMME, more specifically, we have implemented several initiatives to reduce the CO2 emissions of our operations by solarising the rooftop, using biodiesel for heating operations. For our customers, we have developed fuel efficient products.

How are TEMME adapting to make a postive contribution towards the region’s attempts to achieve Net Zero?

In affirming its ambition to be a major player in the energy transition and to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2050, together with society, TotalEnergies has committed to profoundly transform its production and sales while continuing to meet the energy needs of a growing population.

The Company is developing a wide range of energies in an integrated approach in order to decarbonise its supply and generate a competitive advantage that will create long-term value.

Our integrated and multi-energy strategy with our financial robustness, are strengths and sources of resilience that will allow us to become the major player in

sustainable energy that the world needs.

Focusing on TEMME as a business, you’re determined to focus on a customer-centric approach – why is this important, particularly in this market?

Customer proximity has always been our motto thanks to a commercial and logistics organization close to the customer. We now want to go one step further with customer centricity. TEMME continuously strives to deepen the knowledge of its customers by listening to them (we do regular surveys, organise customer weeks). We are committed to improve our customer experience.

This must have become more challenging due to disruption – economic and digital - in the market over the past two years. It is impacting almost every industry, how has TEMME adapted to these pressures?

The world has gone through a lot of change during the past two years and it has been no different to us since we are part of the same eco-system. TEMME like any other business has been resilient and has taken actions adapting to the ever-changing environment. Our different departments, both locally and globally, have been proactively engaged in the rapid digital transformation through the launch of several portals and applications enabling to upgrade and train our direct teams as well as those from our partners.

You’ve previously said you want TEMME to be ‘performance minded’ – what does this mean in practice?

Performance minded is about creating sustainable value for the customer as well as for the company and its people. Focusing on delivering quality products and services, TEMME consistently strives to improve its strategy to meet the expectations of its varied stakeholders.

What innovative solutions have you brought or are planning for the market?

TEMME has been constantly innovating with its products, services and solutions to cater to the needs of the market and the customers. Among them are for instance the introduction of fuel efficient lubricants, customer-centric and technology enabled tank monitoring supply solutions.

A NEED FOR COLLABORATION

Karine Singh says that, while TotalEngeries is willing to take a lead, all stakeholders must collaborate to ensure industry and business successfully transition to new forms of mobility.

Our company is transforming its business activities to deliver tangible and long-term solutions to address a dual challenge: more energies, less emissions”

TotalEnergies was also the first company to launch an extensive range of EV fluids.

Returning to new forms of mobility, how is TEMME positioned to play its part in the transition away from dependency on fossil fuels?

Beyond initiatives to reduce the CO2 emissions of our operations, such as solarising the rooftop and using biodiesel for heating operations, for our customers, we have developed fuel efficient products. Ultimately, we hope to be a key actor in the electric mobility transition in the region. I would also like to mention that our initiatives towards sustainability have been well appreciated, as we have just received the 2nd runner up award in our 1st participation to the Arabia CSR Rewards

Do you think that we are going to see fossil fuel alternatives, such as electric vehicle adoption match or exceed rates that we see in other markets such as the US and Europe?

We are convinced that the world will need different energies for the different types of transportation as well as for the different types of trips that can be made. We can observe that electric vehicle (EV) adoption is still nascent in the region compared to Europe or US, but we believe it is just a matter of time.

Many of our customers are now enquiring about EV solutions, whereas only one year ago many were dismissive. Everyone wants to be an actor in the transition. A conducive and transparent regulatory environment is also key for EV adoption.

Also, should there be greater collaboration between companies like yourself, customers and other stakeholders to make this transition easier?

Yes indeed, we all need to play our part in the transformation journey to make it easier and faster also. This is particularly true for the EV mobility whereby we believe that collaboration or partnership can facilitate the implementation of a sustainable business model to set-up the required charging infrastructure.

Looking ahead what are your ambitions for yourself and TEMME in the region as we near the mid-2020s?

I am proud of what our teams have been able to achieve so far. We want to continue being a reference in the region in lubricating solutions for our customers while accompanying them in their own mobility and energy transition. Our key words within the Company are: customer, climate, deliver, together!