At Maersk Oil, many recently graduated engineers begin their careers as Well Site Engineers, but your career path has been totally different. Why is that?

I’m from Esbjerg, Denmark, where I also went to university. Maersk Oil has several offices there that provide most of the support and maintenance functions for our production platforms; engineers have other types of work here than they do at Esplanaden in Copenhagen.

MITAS gives you a chance to try your hand at many different things: a variety of tasks, business units and locations. During my first MITAS rotation, I worked as a Mechanical Engineer in the maintenance department for the Gorm platform.

I spent my second rotation at Maersk Drilling in Lyngby – a totally different business unit, where my tasks were primarily upgrading and renovating drilling rigs – actually as a supplier to Maersk Oil. Now in my final rotation, I am working as an offshore Operations Engineer on the production ship FPSO Gryphon in the British sector of the North Sea. My experiences have all been very different.

After this, my plan is to return to the Maintenance Department in Esbjerg. The programme is giving me considerable experience and understanding of offshore challenges, which will help me in future.

What do you think about working offshore?

I always wanted to try working offshore. An FPSO is a tanker that has been converted to a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel. It is smaller than a production platform and easier to move and dismantle, which is a big advantage in small and marginal fields.

Working offshore on FPSO Gryphon is a much different experience than working in an office. I am on board the ship for two weeks at a time, and there is a totally different work rhythm. Two intense weeks on board, followed by three weeks off suits me just fine, as it gives me plenty of time to work on my new house and take care of my two horses.

When you work and live on a ship, you are so close to everyone else that you have to get along with them. You are also right next to the equipment and production – not just planning things from a distance. 

Compared to drilling rigs, working on Gryphon is relatively calm and quiet because production is steady and stable. As an Operations Engineer, my task is to keep an eye on the big picture and maintain focus. You could say that I have a foot in all departments: maintenance, production and ship operations. I may have to take care of machinery that has broken down, and it can be all sorts of other things: analyses, calculations, project management - I really get about.

What is your opinion of Maersk Oil as an employer?

Maersk Oil is first and foremost an employer that offers staff the opportunity to try their hand at different things – both in terms of work and courses. You quickly get latitude to test things out.

For me, Maersk Oil is an employer that really makes an effort to motivate and develop people. If you show some initiative, you have plenty of opportunity to create a career for yourself – even across business units. Maersk is a huge company that offers many possibilities, and MITAS is the way forward for our future technical leaders, as they say. That’s what I’m going for.