Louis Cauchois - Technical Director at SNPA

Born January 20, 1905 in Asnières.

Ecole centrale de Paris (graduated in 1928), then École nationale supérieure du pétrole de Strasbourg (1928-1930).

Joined La Concordia, a subsidiary of Petrofina, in Romania in 1931 as a site engineer, and quickly became responsible for drilling and production. In 1934 he was head of the Gourma-Genitei workshops in Moreni, then in 1937 head of the company's studies department in Ploesti. In 1940 he was expelled from Romania like all French engineers responsible for preparing the sabotage of the Romanian oil industry so that it did not benefit the Germans. He then became an adviser to the Turkish government for oil affairs.

He joined Pierre Angot at the SNPA, himself, assistant to another "Romanian", Edmond Chappelet, settling down in Toulouse in a mediocre room, on the ground floor of a hotel, where he has a play for him, his assistant and two designers. After a transition to the RAP (Autonomous Oil Company), he returned as technical director; it experiences drilling failures, in part due to the age of the equipment at its disposal. But he was very active in the discovery first of Lacq Supérieur in 1949, then of Lacq Deep, which resulted in a strong eruption of gas: L. Cauchois helped to imagine a diversion of free gas towards a torch to stabilize the eruption. Then, after the intervention of Miron Kinley, he helped to develop in 1955 the special steels, resistant to corrosion, which would allow production to start.

But his activity is regularly interrupted by health problems. He ends up concentrating on his teaching role at theEcole Centrale.

He died in February 1966.