Serving the Teesside Business Community | 31 has given SABIC’ s 1,000 local staff and contractors reasons to be cheerful, not to mention the many thousands more who rely on it within the supply chain.
Bruijnooge has described the upgrade as“ a lifeline for Teesside” but, while the immediate outlook is much improved, everything in the garden is not necessarily rosy.
“ There are always threats and challenges along with the opportunities,” Bruijnooge reflects, as he sits in his office off one of the many warren-like corridors that make up the Wilton Centre building that overlooks the chemical complex.“ But I thrive when I have a challenge and only lose concentration when I no longer feel there are major opportunities for improvement.”
The sprawling 2,000-acre Wilton site is a far cry from Bruijnooge’ s upbringing outside a small village in the South-West of the Netherlands, the eldest son of a Rotterdam dockworker.
But his natural talents for the sciences meant he was always destined to leave behind the quiet life. Having attended school in the city of Bergen op Zoom – now home to one of SABIC’ s key European sites – he studied Chemical Engineering a little further afield in Breda.
Bruijnooge became a SABIC employee almost by default when the Saudi firm acquired his then employers, GE Plastics, but he has never looked back.
He took on his first international assignment when he was transferred to the Chinese capital of Beijing in 2013 before receiving the call that he was wanted on Teesside.
“ It was a company decision,” he explains.“ SABIC on Teesside had come through a period of struggle, during which we’ d had to slim down our operations. The Olefins Gas Cracking project had been sanctioned but the company was not 100 % satisfied with the performance of our Teesside plants, nor the willingness to change and make the necessary breakthrough improvements.”
Bruijnooge’ s successful career in operations maintenance, mechanical integrity, process safety and engineering made him the ideal choice to be parachuted in at a critical period for a business that also included a high-capacity but underperforming low density polyethylene( LDPE) plant and a 50-year-old Aromatics operation at North Tees, the latter of which needed to be sympathetically closed as it came to the end of its commercial life.
“ We’ ve upgraded the Cracker but we can’ t now just sit here and wait. If everything stays the same, we can manage. If Mrs May does some nice deals with Mr Trump then I see more threats and pressures.”
He continues:“ I was told there was a need to improve the process safety, reliability and costs of the assets here. So there were several big challenges but also opportunities. Knowing there are big things asked of me gets me to think outside of the box.
“ Having worked elsewhere – in the Netherlands and China, but also the USA and Spain – I’ ve been able to bring a different outlook to the business.
“ The guys here recognised they needed some help. They listen, they are open to new ideas, and we made a really big improvement in 2016.
“ The team here has real resilience and I’ ve been impressed with the level of knowledge about operating the plants that is well beyond what you find in other places.”
From day one, Bruijnooge threw himself into his Teesside challenge, working day and night, with wife Jenneke remaining in Beijing for a further six months while their son Pieter completed his high school studies and daughter Lineke studied in Rotterdam.
“ It was a peculiar situation,” he recalls.“ For work, it was wonderful, though my team didn’ t always like it too much because I worked so many hours- I was trying to learn about the business as fast I could – but, family wise, it was not fun. I wouldn’ t do that again.
“ My first half year here was work, work, work but when my wife arrived we found a nice house in Aislaby( near Yarm), where we feel at home. At weekends we try to visit places around the North-East, like York, Newcastle, Durham, High Force, Low Force, Castle Howard, Whitby and Saltburn.
“ When I arrived here it was the first time I’ d seen Teesside with my own eyes. I knew nothing of the surroundings of Yarm, Guisborough or Redcar.”
A lifelong Feyenoord supporter, who was a board member of his local side Halsteren back in the Netherlands, he has treated himself to a season ticket for the Riverside Stadium, though he has resisted the temptation to invest in corporate hospitality, preferring to enjoy a pre-match pint in the rather less glamorous Navigation pub.
Picking up the Boro theme as we return to the subject of his working days, Bruijnooge explains:“ It’ s easy for me to connect with the team here, and it’ s therefore easy to take a positon of fighting for the site. In football
“ The team here has real resilience and I’ ve been impressed with the level of knowledge about operating the plants that is well beyond what you find in other places.”
parlance, I’ ve been transferred to Teesside, I pull on the red shirt and it’ s now my job to score goals.”
While there is no such thing as a typical working day, he doesn’ t believe in filling his diary with back-to-back meetings.“ You see that little wooden block?” he asks, gesturing towards the doorstop at the entrance to his modest office.“ That’ s to keep my door open so that people know they can walk into my office. My agenda is never very full. Every day I have conversations with my team about the future and about problems that are on our desk today. I stimulate the empowerment of my team and direct the improvement drive we need. I see so many opportunities that we can still go after.”
SABIC’ s Cracker investment means the global ethylene market’ s equivalent of the Premier League is looking more positive than it has done for some years, but Bruijnooge knows there is no time for he or his colleagues to rest on their laurels.
He pulls no punches when he states:“ We are now on a path of consolidation to make sure we can counter the next wave of threats that are coming at us – because they will come.
“ We’ ve just completed our major upgrade project but I’ m already thinking about what we need to do in 2019, 2020 and 2021. So it’ s about what we manage today and what it will look like four or five years from now.
“ My personal concern is that we, in the UK, hook up a friendship again with the United States. They are building an enormous amount of production capacity there for the same products we make. Once complete, they will have cheap access to feedstocks, brand new technology, and the latest and greatest plants.
“ We’ ve upgraded the Cracker but we can’ t now just sit here and wait. If everything stays the same, we can manage. If Mrs May does some nice deals with Mr Trump then I see more threats and pressures.
“ If Mrs May opens the door and takes away import duty, for instance, then our rivals in the United States have only the transportation costs for getting the products into the UK to consider before they start importing into our market. SABIC, Ineos and other crackers in the UK will then struggle to compete.
“ It is a concern – and we will take it on. Our challenge is to find the next level of breakthrough ideas and opportunities that can help us make the next step in terms of efficiency and effectiveness improvement. So I’ m speaking to my team and I’ m also speaking to influential people in government because we do need to take action to influence political decisions.”