internship > Experience Adeyemi Oyenekan

Experience Adeyemi Oyenekan

Adeyemi Oyenekan

1. What motivated you to choose an internship at Gasunie?

When I heard about the opportunity for a position at Gasunie I was very much motivated by the opportunity to work in an energy environment which would allow me to deal with the real life issues of the energy industry.

The first time I came into contact with Gasunie was at the Martini plaza, where I saw a gentleman talk about pipelines, as he explained the subject, I thought: ‘who could possibly be interested in pipelines and changing from G-gas to H-gas’. However he made it interesting and presented a true challenge that would be interesting to solve. Groningen had transformed the energy landscape of the Netherlands and indeed Europe, and since the amount of G-gas is slowly declining, there’s and interesting question how to deal with the future situation.

How GTS and the Netherlands choose to handle this development was a picture in miniature of the energy challenges facing humanity. Falling reserves of non renewable energy and the question of how to deal with the future situation was a piece of a larger puzzle. Yes, it was still scarily complicated at first but I am always up for a good challenge and so felt that project challenge 2009 was the perfect challenge for me.

2. What role did you play during your internship?

After my curiosity in the project challenge 2009 had been aroused I went for the next scheduled event which was at Gasunie itself. This event consisted of a presentation from the CEO and more in depth explanation of the 5 project areas that would be focused on during the duration of the project. I went to the Energy Use, Infrastructure, and Law presentations. Due to my background in operations and supply chains I was attracted to the infrastructure part of this project challenge.

Consequently I ended up in the infrastructure part of this project and the role of the infrastructure group was to come up with a strategy for GTS to deal with the decline of G-gas from Slochteren in an optimally economical way and taking into account infrastructure and sustainability issues.

The role played in the group was affected by lessons we had learnt about our personality from the introduction week. We did a personality test which came up with different colours to represent our personalities and knowing this in advance we were able to know how we could better compliment each other. The two main colours were blue and yellow; this is not surprising considering that Gasunie is a blue company. Blue represents efficiency and structure while yellow represents innovation and resourcefulness.

Both qualities were actually important in our team, and despite being yellow, I had a high degree of blue. I actually created a new phrase during one of our discussion sessions in which I said I believed in ‘structured innovation’, so blue qualities were not far beneath the surface.

3. What did you learn about Gasunie during your internship?

Gasunie is a company with great art and architecture at its head office and that is important. Because when people work in an atmosphere that is energizing, that creates an inspiring atmosphere.
In addition to fine art Gasunie also has fine people and we found during our project we could approach a wide variety of people who were very helpful and gave us input to enhance our insight and understanding of the gas business. Working in the project challenge has also allowed me gain insight into how the different aspects of the gas business interrelate with each other and I have never looked at a flame of gas the same way again, it has been a great learning experience.

4. Would you recommend a Gasunie internship to other students and why?

I would recommend Gasunie to other students but only if they really know what they want and what they would like to gain from the experience. An internship at Gasunie is fun but also involves dedication to the task at hand. This means they really need to do their own homework and ensure their subject is in line with their school assignments. However for those who just want to get a valuable work experience I really recommend a good assignment at Gasunie.

There is a lot to be learnt, helpful people to assist you and a great deal of exploration and critical thinking to be done. An example of my own learning experience involved discussions with a European parliamentarian and Commissioner as well as presentations at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Certainly if a student wants to gain a holistic perspective of business issues and the working world, an internship at Gasunie is a very fine option.