Page 92: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Aug/Sep 2016)

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Spotlight

PEOPLE The drive to improve

You have a lot of experience

Brazilian native Luis Araujo in the subsea business – at became CEO of Aker Solutio ns

Wellstream, GE, ABB and FMC.

What moves does the wider in 2014, after joining the industry need to make to thrive in business in 2011. He has a BEng the volatile price world?

in mechanical engineering and

I’ve mentioned the need for an MBA. We asked him about greater collaboration. But, collab- his career and outlook on the oration won’t mean much unless it leads to innovation and tech- industry. nological progress that drives our industry forward. As an example, our alliance with MAN hat attracted you to a career in

Diesel is building on the technol-

W the oil and gas sector?

ogy developed for the world’s

I’ve always been curious about new ? rst subsea compression system. technologies. When I began my career We’re developing slimmer, more as a mechanical engineer, Brazil was at cost-ef? cient systems that can be the forefront of deepwater exploration used at even the smallest subsea and just starting to build an industry. ? elds. Our calculations show

This provided huge opportunities for that we can reduce the size and someone with the right background weight of these systems by as and ambition. The deepwater record much as 50% without changing

Luis Araujo Photo from Aker Solutions.

was just above 300m. There was a lot their core functionality. to explore and I knew I could have an Innovation needs to address

The market has changed dramatically exciting technical career. Also, the the market challenges. But, we also since you took over as CEO. What’s been industry is multicultural and I wanted need to be on guard and ensure that the your response and how do you see this to be part of that. current focus on cash ? ow doesn’t sti? e developing further?

the industry. If we stop investing in new

What did you aspire to do when you were There are tough choices to be made, solutions, processes and technologies but also opportunities, in the current it will become much harder to win the younger?

I’ve been an athlete most of my life, environment. We’re now able to make improvements needed.

playing water polo at quite a high level. changes that our customers simply

What exciting technologies or trends is

I enjoy the challenge of competing and weren’t ready for two years ago. These

Aker Solutions keeping an eye on?

the drive to improve. I found the oil include changes in how we approach industry stimulating because it had the both ? eld and technology developments. We’re increasing our efforts in digitali- same push to excel and it also let me be There is a huge push to cut costs and ? nd zation across the company by enhancing part of a team. more effective ways of working. At Aker our process ef? ciency using knowledge-

Solutions we’ve reduced costs for some based engineering tools. Smart and

Was there a key turning point in your life developments by as much as 50%. But, connected products are being developed that changed your course in a di