Balancing energy and the environment

Resilience by design

As the energy sector undergoes rapid transformation, TotalEnergies EP Nederland has stayed firmly ahead of the curve by embracing agility, modernization, and a deep commitment to operational excellence.

The company is the dedicated upstream affiliate of TotalEnergies, a global integrated energy provider, operating in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. It plays a crucial role in offshore gas production in the Netherlands and contributes to the energy transition in Europe, including through its participation in the Aramis carbon (CO₂) transport and storage initiative. The responsibility of providing reliable energy to the European households and businesses demands a reliable digital foundation that ensures speed, safety, and continuity.

For TotalEnergies EP Nederland, IT is more than a support function; it’s a strategic enabler. IT leadership has taken a deliberate approach to streamlining operations — replacing fragmented systems with integrated platforms to simplify processes. The objective was to build a resilient foundation that fosters innovation, supports growth, and allows teams to focus less on troubleshooting and more on driving improvement.

Today, the company’s IT environment is leaner, more cohesive, and more capable than ever. Core systems are unified, data is consistently available across locations, and teams can shift their attention to what matters most: supporting the business as it continues to evolve. By investing in modernization early and deliberately, TotalEnergies EP Nederland has positioned itself to prevent disruption while moving forward with confidence and control.

With that foundation in place, the company is turning its focus to innovation, evaluating advanced features, sustainability improvements, and enhanced data protection strategies. They’re not reacting to problems but proactively designing the future.

Driven by innovation

Headquartered in The Hague, TotalEnergies EP Nederland leads exploration and production activities with a focus on natural gas. Technical, strategic, and engineering teams are based in The Hague , while its Den Helder location functions as the primary logistics and operational hub, supporting offshore platform operations and field personnel.

The company’s portfolio includes mature gas fields, subsea infrastructure, and fixed platforms, with ongoing efforts to enhance operational efficiency and environmental performance. It oversees offshore gas assets in the North Sea, contributing nearly one-fifth of the Netherlands' offshore gas supply.

TotalEnergies EP Nederland is also engaged in energy transition initiatives, including the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS), electrifiƒcation of offshore assets, and the reduction of methane emissions, aligning its operations with broader decarbonization goals. In doing so, the company contributes to TotalEnergies’ ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, together with society, in line with the Paris Agreement's terms.

These operations are vital to the region’s energy security and sustainability goals, especially as they advance toward net-zero emissions.

TotalEnergies EP Nederland has optimized unmanned offshore operations, enhancing efficiency through Full Intervention Mode, and is preparing to deliver CO₂ storage via the Aramis project. IT supports these developments by enabling remote monitoring, automation, cybersecurity, and data systems for sustainability reporting and predictive maintenance.

Gas, growth, and tradition

For years, TotalEnergies EP Nederland managed its data across a patchwork of systems and sites. This fragmented setup created complexity in daily IT operations and posed significant risks to business continuity. With mission-critical data scattered across systems and sites, ensuring consistent access and data security was an ongoing challenge.

As the company continued to modernize and expand its upstream operations, its reliance on data grew. Core business functions — like exploration, production, and compliance — depended on uninterrupted access to accurate, real-time information. But with each site managing its own siloed infrastructure, the risk of outages, data loss, and slow recovery loomed large.

Additionally, the team faced pressure to enhance sustainability and reduce its carbon footprint, including in its data center operations. At the same time, they needed to stay ahead of evolving cybersecurity threats, such as ransomware, without adding an operational burden to the IT team.

To meet these demands, the team set out to simplify its environment, unify its data management, and build a more agile, future-ready foundation — one capable of supporting the company’s ambition to innovate and grow without disruption.

Modernized for the future

To streamline operations and reduce environmental impact, TotalEnergies EP Nederland set out to modernize its IT infrastructure. With implementation support from longtime trusted partner ProximusNXT, the company deployed a NetApp solution that consolidated data across the organization into a unified, scalable platform.

Two synchronized data centers now provide continuous availability and fast failover, ensuring business continuity even during disruptions.

Reduced energy consumption and heat output eased the load on cooling systems and aligned with broader emissions goals.

Stefan Kaihatu, Business Support and Operations Lead at TotalEnergies EP Nederland, reports that after installing NetApp’s systems, the reduction in power consumption and heating was so substantial that the building’s air conditioning was no longer needed as frequently. That benefit makes a significant difference at a company focused on sustainability.

Built-in autonomous ransomware protection adds a strong layer of security, freeing the team to focus on long-term innovation.

Proof in performance

TotalEnergies EP Nederland has transformed its IT operations from fragmented and risk-prone to streamlined, resilient, and efficient. Where teams once dealt with siloed infrastructure spread across multiple sites, they now benefit from a unified system that provides continuous access to critical data and applications, regardless of where work occurs.

This new architecture has directly translated into improved business continuity. In disaster recovery tests, the company has consistently met its one-hour recovery objective, maintaining user productivity despite infrastructure disruptions. From the user’s perspective, systems are always available, with little awareness of the complexity running underneath.

Internally, the IT team reports significant time savings. With fewer daily issues to resolve, they’re able to invest more energy in innovation and long-term improvements. Instead of managing disparate systems, they now manage one consistent environment that supports both virtual desktops and core business workloads.

“We can all agree, from the IT teams to the users, that the system is really robust and stable,” Kaihatu says. “It helps us focus on things other than the daily firefighting. We can really recommend the system to other people.”

Beyond performance, the shift has also delivered measurable sustainability gains. Combined with recently deployed autonomous ransomware protection, the solution ensures that operational excellence is aligned with data security and environmental stewardship.

Next stop: Net zero

As one of the world’s largest integrated energy companies, TotalEnergies plays a critical role in helping meet Europe’s energy needs while contributing to the broader net-zero ambitions of the Paris Agreement. That responsibility informs every technical and strategic decision it makes, from reducing methane emissions offshore to evaluating the carbon footprint of its data center operations.

With a modernized digital infrastructure in place, TotalEnergies EP Nederland is focused on transitioning for the future—driving innovation, optimizing energy efficiency, and strengthening operational continuity across all locations. The team’s robust IT foundation enables members to focus on long-term transformation beyond daily stability.

As the company continues to evolve, sustainability, efficiency, and security remain at the core of its roadmap, bolstered by the ongoing confidence provided by its 15- and 20-year partnerships with ProximusNXT and NetApp, respectively.

“There are a lot of very skilled people working with us. That makes life very easy,” says Kaihatu of the teams at Proximus and NetApp. “That’s why we have this long relationship and have no intention to change that.”