Journeys through Shell: Erin’s story

As a Chemical Engineer by background, I’d always had an interest in renewable energy, and that interest really ramped up when I went back to university to do a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering. I joined Shell after that; my decision to do so was very much encouraged by Shell’s view on environmental issues. To me, Shell was a company that at the time was visibly acknowledging climate change and had started doing something about it. It’s also a large company with a global presence, so I saw lots of opportunity, both in terms of my career and where I could live.

I started as an Operations Engineer at the research centre here, which is now called the Shell Technology Centre Calgary.

It was the early 2000s, and I was providing engineering support for our Upstream assets in the region, so our gas plants, fields, things like that. Specifically, I was in Maintenance Management and Reliability, so for example I might spend my day looking at any outages they may have had, or formulating reliability models for certain assets.

Becoming a Project Management Specialist meant that I was an internal consultant for Shell’s project management process, overseeing projects from beginning to end. One of my jobs was to understand the tools needed to progress projects and advise Project Managers on how to use them to get the best results.

This prospect galvanised that passion for renewable energy inside me; it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss, though I’d never worked in wind before. It was quite different and specialist and the team was relatively small in renewables, but I received a lot of support when I started the job.

I’d been in my Project Management Specialist role for nearly three years, when a vacancy for a Wind Development Manager came onto my radar.

As Wind Development Manager with Shell Wind Energy, I was leading a non-technical risk team to progress the development of a very large wind energy project here in Alberta. Our job was to consult with stakeholders, work through the regulatory processes, secure permits and complete environmental studies. At the same time, I was scouting for other wind opportunities in Canada and assessing projects for potential acquisition in Mexico.

We considered things like how do we connect our wind farm to the electrical system, can we get the necessary permits, and is there even enough wind to make it commercially viable?

Towards the end of my tenure in Shell Wind Energy, the project was winding down somewhat – we had stopped developing projects at that time. Meanwhile my husband, who also works for Shell, transferred to The Hague, so I started to look for new opportunities there. A position in Global LNG piqued my interest.

LNG was, at the time, quite exciting. People were very bullish on it and there was a lot going on in that space. Indeed, it was in much the same vein as Wind Energy and I knew some of the people that had also transferred over. It seemed a good time to move over.

I became Marketing Manager for LNG, working on Shell’s presence at global events. This was quite different to my previous roles, but I really enjoyed it. As Marketing Manager for LNG, I worked with the LNG, Projects & Technology, and Trading businesses to develop the customer value proposition for LNG. I also negotiated sponsorships for our global flagship events, such as the World Gas Conference, and organised everything for these external events, from stand design and submitting papers, to organising parties for our stakeholders and figuring out how to demonstrate our technical expertise to potential partners. My technical background helped here.

After about four and a half years in that role, I moved back to Canada and started as a Commercial Advisor in New Energy & Alternative Fuels. At that time, I was negotiating new wind projects and a project for a new hydrogen station. So, I was involved in negotiating contracts with partners that could build a hydrogen refuelling station on an existing Shell site.

Despite my background, hydrogen as a business was new to me, but I was actually quite surprised at how long Shell had been looking into this. As with everything in renewable fuel, there is no single answer, but I quickly saw how hydrogen was a very real alternative fuel that could be used alongside other fuels in the future.

I’m now firmly back in renewables as a member of the New Energies business. I spent some time in business development for renewable power, including wind and solar energies and energy storage in Canada, the US and Mexico, and then moved in to business development for advanced biofuels. Now, I’m developing biomethane projects in Canada.

Every time I’ve moved into a new role, I’ve always received support, whether that’s the direct support of my supervisor at the time, or knowledge and/or mentoring from other team members to help me get up to speed on what I need to do. I do also like the four-year-rotation on roles that Shell offers as I’m a person that likes variety.

But what I’d always maintain is that Chemical Engineering as a base has helped me immensely throughout my career. It doesn’t just teach you about how things work, it also teaches you how to think and approach problems.