Ernest Mercier

Ernest Mercier (1878 to 1955) was a French industrialist born in Constantine, Algeria, and educated at the Ecole Polytechnique. In 1923 French government officials appointed him to reorganize the country's fragmented petroleum sector, and in March 1924 he established the French Petroleum Company, known as Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, later the foundation of the Total oil group. Under Mercier the company grew through oil extraction operations in Iraq, Colombia, Venezuela and Romania, alongside refinery construction at strategic locations in France, giving the country a unified national petroleum enterprise able to supply its growing energy needs during the interwar period. Mercier died in Paris in 1955. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/