François de Boulard - Petrofina's Director of Exploration-Production

Born in March 1913 in Bar le Duc.

Engineer of arts and manufactures. Managing Director of Petrofina (1969). Appointed Deputy Director of Petrofina's Exploration Department in 1956.

In 1957 he was appointed Director of Exploration-Production and remained so until at least 1972: he supervised in particular the Group's upstream operations in North America, but was unable to create an internal organization comparable to that of the major international companies.

He was appointed Director of IEOC, the company in which Petrofina invested to explore and produce in Egypt in 1957, and of Petrobelge, which had just been incorporated. In 1961 he became Deputy Managing Director of Petrofina.

He wrote Trends in the Oil Industry in the United States in 1942. And a note on the Saint-Marcet natural gas field (see JJ. Biteau and J. Canerot, The Pyrenees and their foreland of Aquitaine and the Ebro. Tectono-sedimentary evolution and comparative petroleum characteristics (revue le Géologue n°155) [Sources: Petrofina archives]