I am one of the first employees along with my brother to help setting up the company in Qatar.

I have one of the longest careers here in TEP QatarPays QatarShow more! I worked directly with seven Managing directors:  Alain-Michel Jouary,  Jacques de Boisseson, Daniel Picard, Patrick Pouyanné,  Arnaud Chaperon, Philippe Guys, Stéphane Michel, Guillaume Chalmin and Laurent-Rene Wolffsheim.  I still have the pictures of the previous logos of Total here in Middle-East :  Total Moyen-Orient, Total QatarPays QatarShow more, Total QatarPays QatarShow more Oil and Gas, TotalFina, Elf petroleum QatarPays QatarShow more, TotalfinaElf E&P QatarPays QatarShow more, Total E&P QatarPays QatarShow more and Total E&P Golfe. 

The company is a big part of my life and I feel so proud that I was one of the first employees along with my brother to help setting up the company in QatarPays QatarShow more. At that time we were real pioneers. Let me get back in time.  I landed in Doha the first time in 1983. I didn’t pick up this destination by chance: my family already shared a long story with QatarPays QatarShow more. My uncle arrived in 1955 to launch hotels and my brother followed his path in 1973. We are originally from Kerala in South India. In 1991, I joined my brother Abdulla in Total Moyen-Orient, where he was working as a technical assistant for logistics. Without knowing much about the oil and gas business, I became the assistant of the Total Group Representative, Alain-Michel Jouary.

At that time we were only four employees in the company and a few secondees in QGPC (QatarPays QatarShow more General Petroleum Company). The Total employees were also under QGPC’s sponsorship and I used to assist them for their visas and other emigration works. We had to set up everything from scratch and after some months, we moved our office from C-Ring Road to QatarPays QatarShow more Insurance Building in West Bay district. Back then, it was the only commercial building in this area which now hosts more than a hundred commercial towers.  After one month there, we received a brand new computer and a representative from Total Oman came to teach us how to operate the basics of computer. On 29th May 1991, two months after moving, we got the Emiri Decree for the DPSA (Development and Production Sharing Agreement) for the North Field Gas between State of QatarPays QatarShow more and “Total QatarPays QatarShow more Oil and Gas” company (TQOG) ) and published in the official Gazette of State of QatarPays QatarShow more on First Feb 1992.. This was a major milestone for Total in QatarPays QatarShow more.

We got the Commercial License to work in the country on 16th November 1992 and the covering letter for this DPSA was typed by me in the presence of Christophe de Margerie and Alain Jouary. I still remember those days like the best days of my life!