Offshore Day 2017

KIVI invites TU Delft students for the Offshore Day November 2017

It has almost been four months already since three Offshore Engineering students from TU Delft got the opportunity to visit the Offshore Day last November the 23^rd. Normally, a students budget won’t be sufficient to visit such a day, but this year, KIVI made it possible for three lucky students to visit this insightful day, which is normally visited by company executives.

The day started with a reception including coffee & tea. After meeting with some of our acquaintances and having a coffee with them, it was time for the first speaker. This was Adjiedj Bakas. He gave the audience a future perspective in which technology would bring many new opportunities for enhancing life and other futuristic possibilities. The main point behind his story was that all these technologies, together with the further development of the rest of the world, would lead to an increased demand for energy. The need for offshore engineers is real.

Next up was the Head of Division of the IEA to talk about the future of global energy, followed by Vattenfall’s presentation on promising international markets. Before the lunch started, Ad van Wijk from TU Delft talked about future energy systems and how hydrogen could play an important role in the future of energy storage and transportation.

The lunch was delicious and the students enjoyed the lunch with a nice white wine while discussing the topics of the previous sessions.

After the lunch, the parallel sessions started. Because the students recently gained knowledge on wind energy, they were visiting the oil and gas technology sessions. Here, Jan van Kessel from Shell spoke about innovative platform design addressing its near and distant future.

His story explained the drive of future developments by means of the global energy challenge. For the more distant future, FLNG and decommissioning were the subject. The presentation ended with  facts about the Dutch offshore wind industry which Is currently lagging behind, but very much open for opportunities.

Before the networking drinks started, there was an interactive discussion with all attendees. Multiple questions were addressed and everyone with a smartphone (most of people these day) could provide answers on which everyone could vote. Although the start of the sessions was really strong, it seemed that most people were already in the networking mood and therefore the drinks started somewhat earlier than planned.

The students were among the last ones to leave the event after chatting with multiple people from different companies. A very successful day where the students had the exclusive opportunity to experience one of the most interesting offshore related events of the year! The offshore day November 2017 was an experience to never forget.

Bart Westerveld
Chairman Student Association DOT (TU Delft)