Everything is a little bigger in Esbjerg. The ships. The lattice legs of the drilling rigs. The port. The wind blows a little stronger. The rain is a little heavier. And you are perhaps a little more optimistic than usual. Denmark’s oil capital. There is still a lot of activity on the Danish continental shelf. Oil is still being searched for. But the sand in the hourglass is about to run out for the industrial adventure. Not at full speed. But somewhere out there in the future. In a maximum of 27 years. Then someone will pump up the very last drop of oil. Turn off the light on the drilling rig. And sail to land. At least that’s about it. The Danish oil industry has been liquidated by political decision. By 2050. So if: It is estimated that there will be a lot of oil left on the Danish continental shelf also after 2050. But it will remain untouched. – The oil has meant an enormous amount to Esbjerg. Without the oil, Esbjerg would just be a small provincial town, says Carsten Venner. He is from Esbjerg. Civil engineer by profession, but has never worked in oil himself. Nevertheless, he has seen and felt the importance of the industry for the city. – It has meant many jobs and a great deal of prosperity for the city, he says passionately. ENGAGED: Carsten Venner talks about how he experiences the importance of oil in Esbjerg over the past fifty years. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news We meet Carsten in the square in Denmark’s fifth largest city. Right in front of the statue of Christian IX. The city’s founder. He understands that another change is needed. – Now something else will take over, he says firmly. Needed a new harbor In 1864, Esbjerg was at best a fishing village. There may have been between 10 and 15 inhabitants. But this year, Denmark lost large areas of land in the south to Prussia and with it they lost the port of Altona. FOUNDERS: Esbjerg was founded by Christian IX in 1868. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Christian IX needed a new port, and the choice fell on Esbjerg, which was founded as a city when the port was established four years later. Albeit unforgivingly located by the North Sea. Quite exposed to the weather, but still somewhat protected by the promontory of Blåvands Huk and the island of Fanø. From his plinth, the king looks straight across at what has made Esbjerg what it is today. Namely the towers, or lattice legs, as they are strictly speaking, on the drilling rig Nobel Resolute, which is in for rehabilitation. Because even though the population rose and the fishing industry was large in the first hundred years after the foundation, it was when oil was found on the Danish shelf in 1966 that things really took off. VIEW: From the center of Esbjerg, you can currently look straight ahead at the lattice legs of the drilling rig Nobel Resolute, which is in for rehabilitation. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Laughed at the oil workers – Esbjerg was Denmark’s supremely largest fishing town. It was actually one of the biggest fishing towns in Europe. There were 600 fishing boats and a couple of thousand fishermen here, says Morten Hahn-Pedersen. He is a historian and long-time director of the Fisheries and Maritime Museum in Esbjerg and knows the history of the Danish oil adventure in detail. – And this with these oil workers who came… At first it was considered something a little exotic. But actually went and laughed a bit at them. Not many people expected that the oil would be particularly important for either Esbjerg or Denmark, he adds. In the first years after the discoveries in 1966, most of the time was spent agreeing on how Germany and Denmark should divide the areas in the North Sea between them. Only when it was in place could the extraction of oil begin. Six years had passed by then. In 1972, Prince Henrik opened the first oil pipeline to the Danish mainland. Extracting oil from the Danish shelf was not so easy, and it took ten years before proper systems were ready. The oil had to be extracted from the small pores in chalk rocks. So it was only in the early 80s that the oil industry took off in Denmark. – In the beginning there were around twenty companies that had one or another role in the oil industry. It wasn’t particularly big. But when we got more oil fields at the beginning of the 80s, interest also grew significantly. The number of jobs multiplied, says Hahn-Pedersen COMPLICATED: Historian Morten Hahn-Pedersen says that it was quite difficult for the Danish oil industry in the beginning. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Got a new city At the same time, Americans and Britons also came to the city. Some worked on land, others worked on the platforms, but stopped by Esbjerg on their way out and home. Many of the town’s inns took offshore-related names, such as “Boretårn 9″ and the like. The hotels were filled up. – There was also pressure on the city council to make Esbjerg an attractive city to move to. It meant an enormous amount to the cultural life of the city. Museums and cultural centers were established. There were sports halls and a swimming stadium, says the historian, gesturing lightly. Prosperity also led to more industry, including a tobacco factory that was added to Esbjerg. The Danish treasury has earned approx. 550 billion Danish kroner on oil from 1972 until today. The income comes from 20 per cent state participation in all projects. In addition, significant taxation. DRILLING RIG: For many years, Mærsk Oil was the major Danish oil company. In 2017, they sold the business to Total E & P, which is wholly owned by France’s Total. They now have control over the majority of Danish oil production. The picture is of the drilling rig Mærsk Inspirer, taken in 2008. Photo: Marit Hommedal / NTB – If we compare Norway and Denmark in terms of fields, deposits, economy and jobs, then the rule of thumb is that you can divide Norway’s oil industry by ten, and you have roughly the conditions in Denmark, says Hahn-Pedersen. – And when you think about what a giant Norway has been in international oil history, being a tenth of Norway is actually not that bad, he believes and adds: – It has had an enormous impact on our welfare state. The welfare society that has been built up, especially since the 90s, rests to a large extent on oil money. It is not the whole of it, but it is a significant contribution. Used up the money The historian sighs a little. – Unfortunately, we did not do the same in Denmark as they have done in Norway, where they have established an oil fund and saved money there. In typical Danish fashion, we have said. “More money. Fine”. – We have also driven it straight into the household and used them. INSPECTING: Morten Hahn-Pedersen looks at the drilling rigs in Esbjerg harbour. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Therefore, the drop in oil prices around 2015 was very clearly felt in Denmark as well. Although it has recovered a little, it is far from the glory days from 2005 to 2014. And now a broad settlement in the Danish Parliament has established that the oil industry will be shut down by 2050. But in Esbjerg, they are used to change. From fishing village to large fishing port. To the oil capital. And yes. They have come a long way in adapting from the oil industry already. The wind of change – If we think jobs, then it can replace it, says Dennis Jul Pedersen. He has been port director in Esbjerg since 2019. The Chinese have a saying: And in Esbjerg they build windmills. Huge number of windmills. At sea. It is these that the port director believes can take over for the oil. If you walk from one side of Esbjerg harbor to the other, it’s like walking straight through a green transition. Closest to the city are the drilling rigs for control and upgrading. On the opposite side, some giant rotor blades are unloaded. One by one, they are lifted from a cargo ship and placed on neat ground. Later, they are then loaded on board special vessels and transported out for assembly at sea. Half of all offshore wind turbines in the North Sea are shipped from Esbjerg. CARGO SHIP: The various parts are delivered to the wind turbines from different cargo ships. From Esbjerg, they are shipped out to sea and installed in the wind farms. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news The port director shows us around and explains. – The North Sea is absolutely essential, both to become independent from Russian gas, but also in the green transition. The weather conditions in the North Sea are also absolutely ideal for offshore wind turbines, with relatively high wind speeds and relatively low water depths of between 30 and 50 metres, he explains. – This part of the North Sea will be able to help supply the whole of Europe with green energy in the future. – It can both replace the income from the oil industry and it can create more jobs than there were in the oil industry. Especially here in our region, he believes. CONVERTING: Dennis Jul Pedersen and Esbjerg harbor are well underway with the conversion. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news The port director also points out that, if the ambitions for offshore wind are to be followed in Europe, one will go from around 8,000 employees in the wind industry today, to 250,000 people within just seven years. So by 2030. Must be able to be exported We walk between the huge rotor blades. Pedersen explains that today’s rotor blades are around 70-80 metres. But soon they will be able to be developed and become even bigger. SMALL: These rotor blades are just under 80 meters long. In a few years, the ambition is to build windmills with rotor blades of 125 metres. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Then you quickly talk about rotor blades that are 125 meters long. The goal is for Denmark to produce 14 gigawatts from offshore wind annually. That is well over twice as much as the country needs. And then they get a profit that can be exported. The criticism against large offshore wind farms has often been that it disrupts life both above and below water. However, both research and experience have shown that this is not the case. Quite the contrary, says Morten Hahn-Pedersen. – We have experience from Horn’s reef right out here that the foundations on which the mills stand are actually being converted into natural biotopes. That means there will be fish fry, starfish, mussels… in short, an incredible life out there. SEA WIND: In Esbjerg, they believe offshore wind turbines will soon become a bigger industry than the oil industry ever was. Photo: AP – And you can imagine, as these wind farms get bigger and bigger, that there will be an opportunity to utilize the areas between the turbines, he adds. Because in Esbjerg, it has already thought ahead from the green transition. The next color might be blue. -We started with a black offshore, the oil, then we got a green offshore – the wind. I expect that we will also get a blue offshore, with the utilization of ocean currents, wave power and tides and whatever else lies in the possibilities. It will probably also happen sometime in the future, Hahn-Pedersen firmly states. So the oil adventure may be coming to an end. But not the optimism. GEOGRAPHY: One could well say that geography plays a role when Esbjerg is to transform itself into Denmark’s offshore wind capital. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news
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The Danish oil adventure has been given an end date – Urix
