Offshore Engineering

Since 1926 Dredging Engineering and since 1975 Offshore Engineering courses are given at the Delft University of Technology. In 2004 these two specialisations merged and formed the new MSc programme Offshore Engineering, a two-year curriculum leading to the MSc degree in Offshore Engineering. The programme consists of four specialisations: Fixed (Bottom Founded) Structures, Floating Structures, Subsea Engineering and Dredging Engineering. Students with a BSc degree in Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering can enrol in this programme. Students with a different background should first consult the staff of Offshore Engineering to explore the possibilities.

Offshore Engineering is multidisciplinary and is a cooperation between Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Marine Technology.

Offshore & Dredging Engineers make structures such as fixed and floating platforms for the oil and gas industry. They also design undersea pipelines and other underwater equipment for this sector. An important feature is the design of dredging equipment for land reclamation, maintenance and the recovery of embedded minerals in deep-sea locations. Another application of offshore engineering is the design of offshore wind farms. Offshore & Dredging Engineers are the people who design facilities for the 70% of the earth’s surface area that is not land.

Scope

The offshore & dredging industry is a relatively young, international industry, which has expanded globally in the last fifty years. Almost all new offshore & dredging engineers work in the private sector. The offshore & dredging industry’s relative ‘youth’ means that problems often arise that have never been encountered before. This means that offshore & dredging workers (and students of offshore & dredging engineering) must possess a great deal of ingenuity and demonstrate initiative in addressing and resolving problems.