Jutal making waves in an international arena ( Upstream )
Date：2008-10-24
DANIEL Chen, executive director and general manager of Chinese
contractor Jutal Offshore Oil Services, may have an English name
but at heart he is a man with strong traditional Chinese values.
In 2007, Chen moved to Jutal from a senior position at China
National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in order to live closer
to his elderly parents and spend more time with them. When I am
with them, they feel at ease,” he says.
Founded in 1995, Hong Kong-listed Jutal has since expanded into a
competitive service provider for offshore oil and gas projects as
well as the shipbuilding industry, with manufacturing yards in
Zhuhai, Dalian and Tianjin.
As well as providing technical support services to offshore
operations, the company is also an expert in design, procurement,
and the manufacture of oil and gas equipment.
Chen was born in a mountainous rural area in southern China’s
Guangdong province in 1962, and he endured hardships similar to
those his parents had during their childhood.
I never had enough to eat when I was young,” he says from his
office in Shekou, Shenzhen.
In 1978, Chen was admitted to Southwest Petroleum University in
Sichuan province to study petroleum engineering.
His first job after graduating in 1982 was as a well-testing
engineer at CNOOC’s Zhanjiang branch. He later became a facility
and production engineer and eventually took on the role of chairman
of the joint management committee for the Yacheng 13-1 gas field in
the South China Seaa joint venture with US company Arco.
Chen’s training did not stop there and, between 1985 and 1986, he
worked with Schlumberger in Perth, Australia.
He also obtained a Masters degree in business administration from
the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands in 2001 and,
in the same year, his career climbed a rung higher.
He became president of East China Sea Xihu Oil & Gas Operating
Companya four-party joint venture of CNOOC, Sinopec, Shell and
Unocaland was tasked with managing and operating what is now the
controversial Chunxiao field in the East China Sea.
By 2004, Chen had been transferred to Beijing to assume vice
presidency of CNOOC International, in charge of the company’s
overseas mergers and acquisitions. Chen was at the core of CNOOC’s
attempt in 2005 to take over Unocal. He headed the tech-nical and
commercial evaluation team and worked day and night on the deal. To
better concen-trate, he turned his office into a bedroom and spent
nights there.
Though the deal ultimately failed as a result of opposition from
the US Congress, it sparked Chen’s interest in mergers and
acquisitions.
I learned a lot from the deal,” he says, adding that his
involve-ment enabled him to work with bankers, lawyers and
accountants.
If CNOOC had succeeded, Chen believes it would have been a
revolution for the company.
CNOOC would have been reborn,” he says with regard to Unocal’s
management expertise.
Chen found the move from an exploration and production com-pany to
a service business less of a jolt than he had expected.
When Jutal chairman Wang Lishan invited Chen to join his company,
it was for his experience in managing joint ventures and
international portfolios rather than his knowledge of the service
sector.
He is aware of tough competi-tion in the domestic services sec-tor,
and is keen to expand Jutal’s
international business, extending the export of its products to as
far away as the Gulf of Mexico and the Middle East.
However, that does not mean Chen is uninterested in the domestic
market.
This July, Jutal secured a deal to provide mechanical and
electrical products, instrumentation and installation and
commissioning for China’s first deep-water semi-submersible rig,
being
built at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipyard.
When designing his company’s business development strategy, Chen
tries to avoid clashing with
rivals such as state-owned China Oilfield Services Ltd (COSL).
Though Jutal has reserved space on the coastline at its
400,000-squaremetre Zhuhai yard
for building facilities for offshore rigs and jackets, Chen does
not want to rush into the business
just yet.
According to Chen, a strategy to further consolidate Jutal’s
position in the offshore equipment manufacturing sector would serve
the company’s investors better.
Though entirely focused now on Jutal’s oil service business, Chen
is still passionate when talking about his days at CNOOC. In his
office, he has pictures of himself with for-mer colleaguesreminders
of his time working there.
Despite a busy work schedule, Chen enjoys spending as much
