French oil veteran returns to Calgary on a clean-tech mission

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When he left Calgary in late 2012 after building up Total SA's oil sands business, Jean-Michel Gires ruffled a few feathers when he said Canada's oil patch was too populated by "mavericks" to best tackle its biggest technological problems.

Now, the French oil veteran has returned, this time as partner in a clean-tech venture capital fund aimed at seeking out the innovation needed to improve the environmental performance of the energy sector and other basic industries.

After less that nine months away, the former president of Total Canada E&P has relocated to Calgary to join Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. He is is helping to set up a $150-million to $250-million (U.S.) fund that will seek out and finance innovative technologies. This comes after he had resigned from Total following 25 years with the oil major.

"For a long time, I've had a strong interest in innovation. I always wanted to involve much more but given my occupation as an executive with Total, I couldn't devote much more than 2 or 3 per cent of my time to innovation," Mr. Gires said in an interview.

"We have many challenges for the future. Industry's facing important challenges – economic challenges, environmental challenges. Some of them will be resolved by better technologies, better solutions.

"I always wanted to be involved in that, and I thought Western Canada would be an interesting place to come to and start this new cycle for me."

Vancouver-based Chrysalix provides early-stage financing, hands-on help and its network of contacts to companies aiming to bring numerous types of technology to market. It currently manages about $350-million in assets.

On his last day heading up the French oil major's operations in November, Mr. Gires told The Globe and Mail that he believed there was too much fragmentation in the Canadian energy industry as it seeks the public trust while trying to boost exports.

What was needed, he said at the time, was more of a "cluster" that involved companies, universities, government and venture capitalists to solve environmental problems stemming from the oil sands, shale gas and other resource developments.

He was involved in the development of a few high-profile technology-sharing efforts during his three years leading Total Canada, including Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, or COSIA, which brings together several companies to share technology on such environmental fronts as emissions and toxic tailings ponds.

The fund is in the market for technology that goes beyond what's being developed in-house by large companies.

"Major companies are quite good at developing incremental innovation when you're trying to improve your existing process on a continuous basis," Mr. Gires said on Tuesday. "But when we speak about breakthrough innovations, trying to change the set of technologies you are using, it's a much more difficult game, because those technologies are different, they're not invented here, are not what you are used to."

Many such methods need to be developed in the lab and field by entrepreneurs, and venture capital help can move it forward, he said.

The new fund, which is scheduled for launch by the end of this year to be in place for a decade, will not concentrate solely on energy, but also metals and mining, chemicals as well as power and utilities.

However, given his experience and locale, Mr. Gires will have a special interest in the oil and gas sector and the oil sands, he said.

(Jeffrey Jones is a Globe and Mail Business Reporter.)

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