Page 16 - Danish Offshore Industry 2019

OPTIMISM
By Lars Guldager Dyhr

LYING IN WAIT IN ESBJERG

The offhore industry is still being a major contributor
to the growth of Esbjerg, so the Mayor of the town,
Jesper Frost Rasmussen, will work hard to ensure the

continuation of the attractive conditions offered. This

means i.a. focus on the continued development of the
harbour

The lay-out of Esbjerg Harbour is constantly changing ing in our harbour. Definitely, it is not everyone here in
these years as progress is reflected in the many new and Denmark who has enjoyed significant growth during
renovated domiciles growing up along the quaysides. the latest number of years, but looking through Esbjerg-
At the same time more and more open areas within the glasses the Tyra-project naturally accounts for much of
harbour’s boundaries are telling about the wind power our positive view of the future. At present we witness
industry constantly requiring additional space for their major preparations for the shut-down. This involves a
wind turbine components bound for the windy waters of number of various activities, and we know that several
the North Sea. Naturally, the recent recession has been companis have got contracts in this field,” explains the
felt, but progress has been like a locomotive may be ac- Mayor, who himself has been in Malaysia with Total to
cepting reducing a bit of impetus, but refusing to accept study parts of the processes involved.
applying the brakes.
“It takes time before the major constructions are shipped
For that reason the offshore industry, naturally, is essen- to Esbjerg, and other activities must be stopped till then.
tial when in 2019 the Municipality of Esbjerg is going to But we know that the re-construction of Tyra means that
name the components of the vision which are to ensure a key element of the infrastructure will then be in place,
growth and wellfare of energy metropolis of Western and this, obviously, must result in many years of activity
Jutland, now planning ahead towards 2025. for the oil and gas industry in the North Sea. In Malaysia
I, myself, saw the size of the undertakings, and I shall be
“Obviously, energy means very much to us, and even if looking forward to seeing all the jobs transferred to local
we are constantly focusing on a more “green” profile oil companies,” states the Mayor from his office situated
and gas, naturally, are of the utmost importance, too. only a few kilometers from the harbour.
About one third of the jobs in our municiplality is related
to offshore which is thereby our largest single type of NEED FOR MORE SPACE
industry. For that reason it is only appropriate that we Even if the Tyra-project is scheduled to start speeding up
are focusing on that activity as well. As companies are later this year, Jesper Frost can see other activities calling
attracting employees wanting to live in our town we for more space in the harbour area, and there is no indi-
cannot separate things, so the scope of industry is inter- cation that these activities will dwindle away.
woven in many other aspects, too. The “green” transfor-
mation may appear attractive, but we have to recognize “I am looking forward to a year where wind power from
that as a society we need the income from oil and gas the sea will take up much of the space here in our har-
to make this transition real,” concludes the Mayor Jes- bour. We have more or less filled up all the physical space
per Frost Rasmussen (V), who in general is wearing his available, so we have started up the process of extend-
positive glasses, when it comes to considering the future ing our premises. This requirement is being processed
development of Esbjerg. politically, but we expect to extend our harbour facilities
by another million square meters and have another
“I enjoy an optimistic view of the future not least caused kilometer of quay constructed. The project is undertak-
by the feed-back I get from the various companies work- en as we have reason to believe that the years to come

14 / OPTIMISM LYING IN WAIT IN ESBJERG