A leading world player
Total, one of the world’s leading petrochemicals companies, does business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. Its main product is polymers, which are used to make a host of plastic products that are indispensable to daily life in today’s world.
Total helps to valorise hydrocarbon derivatives – naphtha, butane and distillates – mainly produced by the Group’s refineries.
And its activities now include development of polymers derived from other feedstocks, such as ethane, coal and biomass.
The end-product: plastics
Total has two main product groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them. These raw polymers are sold to converters who use them to make a wide variety of plastic products that are used by industrial companies as well as by millions of consumers throughout the world.
Plastics have properties that make them ideal for a whole host of applications. Products made of plastic are stronger, lighter, more economical and recyclable. And ongoing improvements in the properties of polymers mean that plastics are more than ever a material of the future.
Plastics are all around us: in our homes, in our motor vehicles, in healthcare… They are used in all sorts of packaging, have a growing number of uses in electronics, and are now used in all fields of sport.
Some examples ?