2022 Summer Internship Programme

With Interns from Norway, UK, Singapore and Australia, the BW Offshore Summer Internship Programme provides students with the opportunity to work in a multi-national team with exciting and challenging tasks, while interacting with our teams in different locations both in person and online. As part of their deliveries, they were challenged to write a summary article about their experience with the company, and reflect on the programme developed by BW Offshore to promote understanding about the FPSO industry, as well as help up progress on our strategy to become a diversified energy company capturing opportunities in the energy transition.

The company would like to extend a huge thank you to the interns for their engagement, dedication and and support given to our teams, it has been a great pleasure to get to know them all throughout the summer.

 

Being an Intern at BW Offshore

Villain or visionary? For some of us participating in BW Offshore’s flagship Summer Internship Programme, the oil and gas industry is not just a one-dimensional ‘villain’ but an essential industry labouring under public stigma. Constantly evolving to meet contemporary environmental, social and economic goals, the industry is clearly looking ahead to a lower-carbon future, with BW Offshore riding the green wave by investing in innovative and clean energy solutions.

 

Kicking-off the programme

- Meeting key stakeholders

Already from day one of the Internship, BW Offshore’s commitment to a lower-carbon future was crystallised, as we got to meet CEO Marco Beenen who shared his strategy on how he hopes to guide BW Offshore in the ongoing energy transition. He highlighted the role of bright-eyed interns and graduates as one of the cornerstones to the company’s goal to progress the future of energy. During the first days of the internship programme, we also got to learn from and speak with other members of the Senior Management Team and key stakeholder from several departments. These meetings were invaluable opportunities for us, as few internships offer a glimpse into every level and department for interns. For example, COO Kei Ikeda took time out of his busy calendar to share the process of BW Offshore’s bid for the Barossa Project, complementing the introduction provided by the Barossa Pre-Operations Team of its energy efficient design and focus on minimal environmental impact. In other words, we really got to learn about different aspects of the company’s processes, and see how the teams need to work together to reach their common goals.

Common Task

Further, we were involved right away in our Common Task, which is a tradition for interns doing a Summer Internship with BW Offshore. This year, the company called for support to explore the possibility for a Floating Green Ammonia FPSO. Not only did this task expose us to a new frontier of renewable energy, but it also fostered multi-disciplinary teamwork across our respective Engineering disciplines of Materials Science, Civil and Structural, Process and Mechanical and Marine Safety, and even Cyber Security.

Here, the willingness of our mentors, Common Task designers as well as people outside of our departments to answer our questions and provide supported learning opportunities both excited and encouraged us in our work. At the end of the internship programme, we presented our project and findings to a large group of company representatives from different departments and locations, and were happy to learn that BW Offshore will be able to use our findings in their continued work to explore how Green Ammonia can be a good fit for the company.

Individual Tasks

Individually, we also delved into varied, practical, and interesting work.

Dion, joining as a structural engineering intern all the way from Australia, was involved in some remediation works for BW Offshore’s fleet. His tasks involved the analysis of a damaged crane on the FPSO Adolo along with a ‘fit for purpose’ verification for a riser balcony on the FPSO Petroleo Nautipa. Both tasks required him to utilise the programme STAADPro for structural analysis.

Process Engineering interns Oda and Logan were assigned simulation tasks, with Oda simulating FPSO Adolo’s flaring systems and the FPSO for the Barossa Project’s heat exchangers, while Logan simulated a radiation study via a Flaresim model. They also undertook the extensive work of comparing Safety Flow Diagrams (SFD) against Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID) for the FPSO currently being built for the Barossa Project to produce and update a registry of the different types of valves.

In the Asset Engineering and Maintenance department, Abhishek and Shivansh worked on a wide range of tasks related to thermodynamic processes, piping and turret technologies, gas turbines and flanges and bolts – offering them a veritable crash course in the mechanical engineering field. Lynda, who focused on Materials, supported in preparing workpacks for the inspection campaigns. She also set up mathematical models for Fitness-For-Service and a reference document for equivalent piping material standards.

Markus, Cyber Security & IT intern, and our go-to guy for every IT-related issue under the sun, followed up on cyber security incidents and tests. He also collaborated with different departments to address the various cyber security problems they face, thus gaining valuable knowledge into how cyber security issues are addressed in a multinational organisation.

Chen Jing, who was interning in BW Offshore’s the Legal department, honed documents and transaction management skills through assisting in contract and policy amendment and drafting. She also worked on registering and de-registering units and helped to advise on matters of employment and directorship.

Aleksander, supporting the Operational Integrity department, applied theory learnt in school to the industry by working on hydrocarbon leaks and improving on data collection methods. The result has been a comprehensive database personalised for BW Offshore’s use, streamlining data gathering and analysis.

 

A truly global company

Visiting a yard and going onboard the BW Opportunity

During the internship, all the interns got to travel to locations away from their home countries. While kicking-off the programme in Oslo, after a few weeks, we all travelled to Singapore to continue our work with the teams there.

Outside of the office, we spent a sweaty but satisfying day at Keppel Shipyard in Singapore. Touring FPSO BW Opportunity’s Process, Utilities, Living Quarters and Helideck area while the Senior Engineers described how each module worked, and in particular, the new Aft Hull project was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us, where we got to experience and understand the responsibilities and the daily requirements of the Construction team. Seeing a unit similar to what we had worked on up close and personal was the culmination of our so-far deskbound internship experience, thus solidifying our interest in working offshore.

All this, combined with the chance to visit Oslo, Arendal and Singapore really set this internship apart. Working in a different country gave us insights into BW Offshore’s global reach, and impressed us with the harmony of cultures and welcoming spirit no matter which office we were in. Travelling abroad and meeting different members of our respective teams further meant that we could better connect with someone who would otherwise have only been on the other end of a Teams call.

Looking Ahead

For many of us, this internship will be a steppingstone into the BW Offshore Graduate Programme, to hopefully realise one of the company’s ambitions to nurture an intern into for instance, a future Offshore Installation Manager. While the hands-on experience, in-depth technical knowledge, industry insight and engaging discussions we gained and enjoyed will stand us in good stead for this role, we will treasure even more the friendships forged and memories made during this internship.  

Thank you to BW Offshore for providing us with this opportunity, and for an unforgettable summer!

2022 Summer Internship team

Shivansh, Oda, Abhishek, Dion, Aleksander, Logan, Lynda, Markus and Chen Jing