Colleague Lennart on his experiences as an expat at Jan De Nul

Career

Like many employees with the Jan De Nul Group, Lennart worked initially for two consecutive months followed by one month off. After he had gained experience in Sweden and Argentina, his boss telephoned him to ask if he would consider working on a project in Brisbane. His boss also asked him at once whether his girlfriend would like to go with him and whether or not they wanted to take up the challenge as a married couple. ‘We had plenty of time to consider that offer, but we made up our minds within half an hour and decided to take up this adventure. The rest is history and in the meantime we’ve lived in Australia, France, and Guadeloupe.’

‘The fact that we’re still connected to a Belgian employer is something very important for us. In terms of work ethic, language, and general expectations, this creates a structure which you can take with you all over the world. The fact that our colleagues come from all corners of the world is also a nice benefit. As an employee with the Jan De Nul Group, you’re never alone abroad, but always part of a project team. It’s this combination of alternation, co-operation, a high degree of autonomy, and challenge which makes it so worthwhile. Always something new, with new people, intensity and stress, and the eventual discharge when everything turns out okay.’ 

Internal trajectory

Lennart tells us enthusiastically about the various jobs which he has already done and the internal trajectory which he has completed: ‘At Jan De Nul you get opportunities so that you’re confronted with various challenges and you learn to think in terms of problem-solving and to relativise where necessary. To illustrate this further, here’s a brief summary of the various jobs which I’ve done during these seven years: tender engineer at the offshore tender department in Aalst, operational superintendent in Calais (for the renewal and extension of the port), and dredging and offshore works for the site QHSE manager. This has given me the opportunity to approach the works from different perspectives. I don’t believe I would’ve had all these opportunities so soon in Belgium.’ 

‘I soon realised that I was more interested in the operational side. And so, I always felt it was my job to test the QHSE elements against what is operationally possible and vice versa. That’s a difficult balancing act, but you have to implement it constantly in order to arrive finally at workable solutions which are realistic and feasible. For that matter, this balance, in the shape of operational control, is the cornerstone of our ITA campaign within Jan De Nul.’

‘After various interviews and a transition period of a few months, I was deployed from 2017 onwards as Superintendent on the same site in Calais. Jan De Nul listens to people and is prepared to invest. And so, migration between departments is a reality, and not merely a theory.’

The project

Lennart is now part of a team of about 50 people currently working on an offshore wind farm for the national power supplier Taiwan Power Company (TPC). As an engineer, he works in a team which is responsible for the purchase and installation of the offshore cable, which transports the energy generated by the wind turbines at sea to the land. And so, not only engineers’ tasks, but also the drafting and assessment of commercial proposals, following up contractual obligations, quality controls, and supervision on the site are part of his job description on the project. The range of tasks changes in line with the project phase. Jan De Nul Group certainly isn’t a newcomer in Taiwan, as the group has operated there for over 20 years. Initially, that was mainly for dredging works and the provision of offshore services, but since 2018 also for the construction of wind farms. The total contractual value in Taiwan has now run up to over one billion euros thanks to the Formosa 1 Phase 2 project, which was awarded earlier this year, for Swancor-Macquarie-Orsted (also a wind farm), the dredging contract Linkou Port for Taiwan Power Company and the wind farm, and Taiwan Power Company Offshore Wind Farm Phase 1 Project - Demonstration with TPC as client / developer.

The national company TPC numbers over 27,000 employees and is the most prominent energy player on the Taiwanese market. At present, the energy supply in Taiwan consists of coal, fossil fuels, and nuclear energy, and it is almost entirely imported, something which makes the country highly dependent. To scale back this dependence and growth in consumption, Taiwan is concentrating on renewable energy and has developed a four-year plan which focuses in the first instance on wind energy.

The Jan De Nul Group, together with its consortium partner Hitachi, has been awarded the assignment of building 21 wind turbines at sea (a project with a value of about 700 million euros). It is the first of its kind in Taiwan in which the developer is fully Taiwanese. The project will serve as a reference for the future development of wind farms in Taiwan. The consortium with the Jan De Nul Group is responsible for the full design, manufacture, and installation of all foundations, supplying and laying the on and offshore cables, upgrading the electrical installations and the transformer station, and the installation and maintenance of the wind turbines for a period of five years.

An unusual aspect of the design is that the foundations and wind turbines have to be able to withstand typhoons and seismic strains. After all, Taiwan lies in the ‘Ring of Fire’, an area around the Pacific Ocean which is renowned for its many earthquakes. For this purpose Hitachi has developed a special sort of wind turbine with a ‘downwind rotor’. The downward configuration reduces wind strain.

Working in an international team

‘l work in a team of about 50 people, half of whom are ex-patriots and the other half are locally recruited employees. This mix works well and is also essential for this project. Since this is a state assignment, all official communication is in Chinese and the building plans are also drafted in Chinese. This language barrier certainly shouldn’t be underestimated; it’s considerably harder to establish links with your client and convey a persuasive message when you have to wait for the interpreter after each sentence. The corporate culture is also different. You can’t compare the way decisions are made here to the way of working in Belgium. It’s a bureaucratic process in which the force of digits plays a part. In the beginning, we were quite overawed when our team of five people was suddenly presented to over 70 delegates from TPC, who assailed us with all sorts of questions.’

‘We notice in many things that the offshore industry in Taiwan is still very much in its early stages. They don’t yet have a specific supply chain here and the safety standards to which we are accustomed in our North Sea projects are unknown here and not taken for granted. Yet that makes our work just that little bit more challenging.’

Family life

In March of this year, Lennart, together with his wife Evelyne and their two children (aged 1 and 3 years old), arrived as the first family on the project. The family has already clocked up a few destinations, but it was all a little strange in the beginning. ‘This is our first Asian destination and we immediately noticed a big difference in culture and behaviour. Likewise the language and the alphabet here are nothing like what we’re used to. After a 12-hour flight, we arrived in a city of over a million people. In the beginning, we stayed in a hotel and it wasn’t always easy to find healthy food with which the children were familiar. But don’t misunderstand me: People have welcomed us most warmly from day one, and it was lovely to experience that so far from home. People love to pose for a photograph with our two little ‘white heads’ and they’ve do all they can to make our life as pleasant as possible.’

It’s no easy thing at all to travel the world as a family. Lennart and Evelyne regularly weigh up their options and consider whether or not the choice to work abroad is still the right one, but so far they remain positive and enthusiastic. ‘On the one hand, you can experience a good part of the world together in a way which is different from going as a tourist. On the other hand, you need to have a very strong relationship since you often only have each other to fall back on. Each time you come to a new location, you have to build up your network, but at the same time also make sufficient time to maintain your relationships with family and friends in Belgium. Evelyne, in particular, takes the lead here. l’m often amazed at how she’s built up several contacts after just a few weeks and has already turned our new house into a home. The framework offered by Jan De Nul allows such rapid progress. Indeed, you get great freedom to choose your new home and you get assistance where possible.’

Lennart and Evelyne do like to return to Belgium during holiday periods. ‘The long trip from Taiwan with two small children isn’t always easy. But it’s heart-warming to see how happy everyone is when we’re together with family and friends. How the children behave after the second day as if things have never been any different and enjoy being pampered by grandparents, family, and friends. Although we all enjoy the time in Belgium, after a few weeks we do get the itch to leave. This means we’re always enjoying the present with a view to something new. With a tinge of melancholy about what lies ahead. It’s this formula which has made it so worthwhile for us all so far.’