Story
TotalEnergies in Denmark
What started as a bachelor internship with TotalEnergies has turned into an offshore career for Simon Gaarde.
Simon is a trained marine engineer from Aarhus Maskinmesterskole and today works as a Production Technician on Dan F.
He joined TotalEnergies as an intern in August 2025 and, after graduating in January 2026, moved into his current offshore role for TEPDK’s manpower supplier Semco Maritime.
A recent feature by Aarhus Maskinmesterskole offers a glimpse into Simon’s daily work, from monitoring the production process in the control room to troubleshooting and working hands-on with Dan F’s complex systems.
From studies to real operations
During his internship with TotalEnergies, Simon based his bachelor project on a real operational challenge at Dan F: meeting EU requirements for NOx emissions from the platform’s gas turbines. This meant combining environmental requirements with a detailed understanding of the turbines and compressors used in daily operations.
Based on this work, Simon developed a system that was subsequently put into use. It gave him the opportunity to take theory from his studies and apply it to a real technical challenge, while seeing his solution become part of operations at Dan F.
I really enjoy working offshore. There’s a strong sense of teamwork out here, and you know you can always rely on the people around you. Also, I really like the complexity of it – you can be there for 20 years and still learn something new every day.
Simon Gaarde
Production Technician on Dan F
The Dan Hub