Upstream Buisness

Our Upstream businesses focus on exploration and production of oil and natural gas across the world, often in joint ventures with international and national oil companies. We liquefy natural gas by cooling and transporting it to customers in several countries. We also convert natural gas to liquids (GTL) to provide cleaner burning fuels.

Upstream markets and trades natural gas and power in support of our businesses. In addition, we extract bitumen - thick, heavy oil – from mined oil sands and convert it to synthetic crude oil. We are also developers of wind power as a means to generate electricity.

In all these areas, Shell develops and operates some of the largest and most complex engineering projects in the world, which require talented engineers and commercial professionals worldwide.

Our Upstream businesses are grouped into two organisational units: Upstream Americas (Canada, Brazil, U.S.), and Upstream International, covering the rest of the world with major interests in Europe, Asia/Middle East/Russia, Australia/Oceania and Africa.

Hi, I’m Astrid and I work at Upstream International Europe (UIE).

Within UIE I work as an Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) on a platform in the North Sea. The challenge is to keep the platform running safely in a remote location. A good platform design, first-rate maintenance of safety barriers and operational limits, and a good operational team ensure a safe and reliable platform environment.

In my opinion, as OIM, it is key to keep asking the right questions, such as: “what risks are involved in which operational activity”, “how do we maintain all sufficient safety barriers” and “how do we take care of the competence profile within the team?”. By asking the right questions, a good decision can be made and unsafe situations can be avoided.

I hope that you have enjoyed learning about Upstream. To give you a better idea of the work that we do, there are some questions on the following pages for you to answer...