Stig Olav Settemsdal
Stig Olav Settemsdal earned an MSc in electrical engineering from the University of Trondheim in 1995 and immediately launched his career with Siemens, joining the company’s Power Electronic Centre as an engineer and project manager.
Over the past 25 years, he has taken on greater challenges within the company, becoming the Technical Manager for Drilling Systems, Product Lifecycle Manager for Siemens Oil and Gas, Global Head of Drilling Solutions, Global Head of Technology for Drilling and Marine, and Global Head of Portfolio Management & Innovation for Offshore Production, Drilling and Oil & Gas Vessels.
This progression exposed Settemsdal to a broad range of technologies in multiple areas and contributed to his ability to look across industries to identify opportunities for technology transfer and innovation.
Leadership: As head of the Oslo-based Offshore Solutions business, Settemsdal oversees R&D as well as associated capital and human resources, integrating engineering expertise, problem-solving skills, and business acumen. In this position, he has played a pivotal role in developing innovations for the offshore upstream sector.
Settemsdal and his team have contributed measurably to advancing the upstream, offshore oil and gas industry through cost-, risk- and environmental-impact-reducing technologies. His vision has focused efforts at Siemens on deriving value from the Internet of Things (IoT).
While the industry talks about effectively harnessing Big Data and the IoT to improve performance, Settemsdal’s team has actively done so by applying advances in data analytics and sensor technology to open the door to significant efficiency gains. Among their achievements are advances in remote monitoring and preemptive maintenance of mission-critical equipment.
Accomplishments: One recent example of Settemsdal’s contributions to the oil and gas industry is digitalization deployed to enable an ultra-low-manned offshore platform in the North Sea. Under his leadership, his team is overseeing a multi-year project that enabled a North Sea operator to use a unique approach to condition monitoring to reduce the number of personnel onboard an offshore asset, reducing cost as well as risk.
His team also has been instrumental in developing technology supporting a sustainable energy mix for the marine industry and transferring this to offshore oil and gas, using knowledge gained from developing zero/low-emissions electric ferries and passenger vessels, ten of which are currently operating in Scandinavia.
Understanding that a clean, reliable power supply is critical for offshore assets, Settemsdal and his group are applying their extensive electrification experience in the marine industry to offshore oil and gas, with a focus on reducing emissions and risk in demanding operational environments. Using BlueVault, a proprietary advanced lithium-ion battery-based energy storage solution, Settemsdal is leading the effort to extend the ability to store all-electric and hybrid energy to offshore platforms, ensuring continuity of power and minimizing CO2 emissions, with an end goal of a low-emissions platform.
This trailblazing effort has produced the world’s first drilling rig to operate a low-emission hybrid power plant using the BlueVault lithium-ion energy storage solution. By integrating this technology, the rig owner will reduce fuel consumption by 12% and CO2 emissions by 15% for the life of the rig.
Insight: “I’m passionate about innovation and the transformation of business and society and believe in moving boundaries and changing the way companies collaborate by contributing to the welfare of society in a sustainable way. For me and my team, ‘ingenuity for life’ means working relentlessly to create value for our industry as well as sustainability for society.”