Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

Describe your main responsibilities
Supervising the safety of offshore operations, maintenance and vendor teams
Lead and manage the offshore team of operations technicians
Planning and preparing offshore gas and gas condensate production platform for maintenance
Optimisation of plant performance to ensure safe, reliable and predictable production
Issue permits, maintain and keep up to date the ISSOW (Integrated Safe System of Work) permit to work system for the platform.
Supervise the control room and operations technicians during plant major emergency management procedures.

Describe a typical day
0400 - go to the gym
0500 - 0530 breakfast
0545 - 0615 face to face handover from nightshift shift supervisor
0615 - 0700 start preparing plans for the day for operations team
0700 - 0800 act as Area Authority for platform issuing all permits for work for the platform for the day
0800 shift meeting with the operations team
0830 daily planning meeting with multi discipline team
0900 - 1100 time spent on site reviewing worksites. Visable safety leadership.
1100 - 1200 meeting with onshore support team
1230 - 1300 lunch
1300 - 1500 time on site / planning work / reacting to any plant issues
1500 - Maintenance meeting
1600 - Permit meeting reviewing permits for next 2 days
1700 - 1745 Write up daily handover information
1745 - 1815 Face to face handover with nightshift shift supervisor
1815 - Daily safety meeting and wash up meeting
1900 - Any other business
1930 Recreational time
2100 Bed

Every day is different and each day is very busy. You get an opportunity to work with all disciplines on the platform and get a fantastic insight to all the activities performed on an offshore production platform from maintenance on kitchen equipment in the galley to helicopter operations and even drilling operations involvement. It is such a varied role it has a little bit of everything.
It is a very people-centric role such that everything that you are trying to do through the day will require working very closely with colleagues to deliver safe and reliable production for the platform.

The main benefit of offshore work however is the time off. When you are not offshore on the platform you have plenty of opportunity to relax and travel in your time off. Typically you will only be offshore 40% of the year.

Shift work in an offshore environment can be very tiring and overwhelming. It is a very busy role with many different people requiring your input throughout the day. Every day is different and there can be a lot of thinking on your feet. We work 2 week rotations offshore so after 2 weeks of the long busy days it can be very tiring. As I mentioned before, it is a role where you have to work very closely with a large variety of people from various backrounds and experiences and often the biggest challenges are not technical but human.

2 weeks away from families and friends at a time can also be a challenge particularly if there are issues at home or over national holidays such as Christmas and New Years. This is something that take some getting used to but it is part of the job as it is a 24/7 operation.

I like the complexity and importance of the energy industry. It is an industry that will only get more important with time. Engineering for oil and gas projects will become more challenging and innovative in order to deliver the worlds energy needs in the next 50 years.

Working offshore in the UK you get to see the ful lifecycle of an offshore platform from the exploration of fields, their drilling, completion, production, optimisation, life-extension, debottlenecking, and now most recently, their decommissioning. The UK has a world leading experience in all these areas and it is a fantastic place to learn.

I love the practical aspect of the job being on site at work everyday and dealing with all the technical and people issues that arise. No two days are the same.

- People skills are essential when dealing with so many people throughout the day. It can be a high stress environment so the ability to stay calm and approach the daily life with a good sense of humour is essential.
- The technical understanding of the chemical process that are in place on the platform is essential to the role and a degree in Chemical Engineering has been a fantastic platform for me to build my understanding of the offshore production processes.
- My role is essentially a leadership role and so general leadership behaviour such as accountability, ownership and courage are key to the role.

I have received training in the following as a part of my job:
- An introduction into the integrated oil and gas exploration and production processes which covers awareness of geology, geophysics, petroleum technolgy, drilling and well engineering, production engineering and stakeholder engagement.
- Introductory courses into oil and gas production and maintenance operations
- Basic well engineering, technology and equiment course
- All HSE training requirements for working offshore such as Minimum Industry Safety Training, Basic Offshore Emergency Induction and Training.

- Working towards Engineering chartership with the Energy Institute
- As a part of a previous role within Shell I have gained a Kaizen Leaders qualification as awarded by Six Sigma

- I plan to remain offshore for the next 3 - 5 years gaining first hand operational experiencee of oil and gas production and drilling platforms. I aim to develop from being an Assistant Operations Supervisor to Operations Supervisor and ultimately Offshore Installation Manager.
- In the medium term 5 - 15 years I will return to operations onshore and broaden my knowledge in production programming roles and in management roles such as operations and maintenance management for an offshore "Asset" (Group of platforms or onshore gasplant)
- In the long term I hope to use a foundation of production operational knowledge to help lead design teams in project work delivering international projects such as Shell's Prelude Offshore FLNG project or Pearl Gas to Liquids projects.

- A placement during your time off in the summer is a fantastic differentiator when it comes to applying for jobs after uni. Companies will aknowledge your drive, enthusiasm and initiative. More importantly however, it is a great way to find out a little more about jobs so that you are clearer in what you want to do after uni. I took a summer placement as a chemical engineer at a company inbetween my 3rd and 4th years of uni which ultimately gave me an option to join a company after uni but more importantly, I realised that straight chemical engineering was not for me. This allowed me to be more open minded when applying for jobs after uni to see what other areas the skills I had learned on my course could be used. Finally, applying and taking interviews for placements is brilliant practice for job interviews after university. It is a competative market and the mistakes I made when applying for placements and the feedback I received from companies definitely helped me to interview successfully and get the job I really wanted when it mattered.

- Don't think that the job that you apply for after uni has to be in your field of study. I know biomedical engineers who work as rotational equipment engineers and people with finanical studies backgrounds working as offshore production supervisors. Your first job will very rarely be your only job, but most importantly you will start to get experience in the world of work. You will have plenty of time to change your mind and adapt your style and plans to suit the lifestyle that you aspire to. Nobody gets things right first time around. It is better to do something imperfectly than nothing flawlessly.