The flags are up and there is a happy buzz across the board at Semco Maritime. There is both a 60th birthday and a 40th anniversary in the white building today at Esbjerg Brygge 30 – that is the company's headquarters. It is on the first floor with a view of both Fanø and Ho Bugt – but it is not more than 42 years since Semco Maritime came to Esbjerg in 1980.
Back then, there were only a small handful of employees at Hededammen 1 in the not-so-fashionable district of Jerne, close to where the Esbjerg Ø motorway exit is now located. Today, there are 1,800 employees at Semco Maritime, who work within the oil and gas industry and the Renewables area, which includes green technologies within the wind industry.
Anders Benfeldt, who is senior vice president and head of the oil division at Semco Maritime, has the ability to be flexible from a meeting with an important customer and be fully present a moment later.
- We are at our core a Danish company with much more than just a Danish CVR number. We have gone from having three employees at Hededammen to 1,800 now through organic growth. I am fascinated by the fact that we have been here successfully for so long, says Anders Benfeldt.
Semco Maritime – a bit like a family?
The agreement is to talk about electrician Jan Hansen, who started at Semco Maritime last autumn, where he is working on rebuilding Tyra II. The working method appeals to Jan Hansen a lot, even though there is deprivation in being away from home for 14 days, and the salary is not the same attraction as before.
- It is not as well paid as before. A good electrician can earn more on land, and that is problematic. But we are in a global competition where it is extremely hard work to get black numbers on the bottom line, explains Anders Benfeldt.
However, electrician Jan Hansen is satisfied with the salary and the way of working. He is actually so satisfied and excited that in the meantime he is even helping Semco Maritime find more electricians and blacksmiths to work offshore by appearing in a recruitment video.
The word is never dropped, but what Anders Benfeldt describes is a workplace and a company that is a bit like a family. Here, we take care of each other.
- Our social responsibility is part of our DNA, and it is our culture that I am happy about. If an older employee becomes long-term ill, it does not automatically trigger a dismissal, and work is done to ensure that the employee can come back again, says Anders Benfeldt.
He is certain that the ownership of C.W. Obel A/S, which is in turn solely owned by the Obel Family Foundation, is part of the explanation for the company culture at Semco Maritime.
Oil, gas and the green transition
While Jan Hansen now works on Tyra for Semco, and thus helps write company history for Semco Maritime.
- It is from cradle to grave. Semco Maritime helped build Tyra in the 1980s, and we were there when the topsides were dismantled. Now we are helping to rebuild Tyra, says Anders Benfeldt.
As head of the oil and gas division at Semco Maritime, one thing he is a little upset about is the current criticism of fossil fuels in the public.
- I don't think people recognize the prosperity that oil and gas have provided. There is a bridge building from oil and gas to our Renewables business. Right now, the oil and gas division earns a little more than Renewables. But we draw on our experience from oil and gas when we build, for example, offshore substations, says Anders Benfeldt.
The substations are offshore assembly points for the cables from the wind turbines, and part of Renewables at Semco. The company has already built 25 substations. There is a big difference in how many substations an offshore wind farm has. Kriegers Flak, for example, has a substation.
With the many new planned offshore wind farms, there is ample opportunity for more work in the future.
- No one in the world has built as many substations as we have. In 2000, we built two a year, and in 2022 we will build four. And we are one of the leading and market-leading companies in the world within substations, says Anders Benfeldt.
Long-term employment
This is also where he sees a great asset for future employment opportunities for Semco's employees, and the long-term employment, which is not uncommon at the company.
- Today we celebrate a 40th anniversary, and we also did so at the end of last year. Here you can become part of the green transition, and we will need a lot of employees in the future, says Anders Benfeldt about the possibility of starting with working with oil and gas to ultimately work on the transition to green energy.
The long-term employment is clearly something that is part of Semco Maritime's culture. It is clearly also something that Anders Benfeldt is proud of. Just as elegantly as Anders Benfeldt flexed into the interview, he also enters the 40th anniversary of oil & gas consultant Erik C. Grønborg, who has been with us all the way from Hededammen at the other end of Esbjerg.
The welcome, the speech and the opening of the coffee and cake buffet with champagne - an exception on this occasion - are done in a snap.
Semco Maritime will probably flex together with Denmark and the rest of the world into the green transition. And even when the country's last oil and gas field is closed in 2050, there will be work to dismantle another rig. But that's a long time away.
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