Graduate Portrait: Heiko Fuchs
I studied Raw Materials Engineering at the RWTH Aachen. During my studies I had frequent opportunities to research and work abroad. I gained practical experience in gold and hard coal mining plants in South Africa, completed a dissertation for the state of Austria and completed my studies with a diploma dissertation on a limestone storage facility in south-east Asia.
After my studies I worked as an assistant at the FRE to complete my Doctorate. I was able to gain further experience abroad during this time as an assistant. I held lectures at universities in London and Delft, was responsible for the organization of an excursion to Iran and was able to represent the RWTH Aachen as their official representative at international study congresses in Brazil. I left the Division of Mineral Resources and Raw Materials Engineering after completing my Doctorate in Engineering.
Since then I have worked for RWE Dea AG . This company is one of the most important German crude oil companies and is active internationally and is urgently seeking raw materials engineers for work in Germany and abroad. In the first three and a half years at RWE Dea AG I did not work abroad, but I would still maintain that my job was quite special: I was production engineer on an artificial island in the Wadden Sea (Wattenmeer), the only offshore island in Germany. This oil field rig off the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein is the largest in Germany with oil production of 100 million tons. I worked on the planning, development and completion of oil drilling.
I am currently working for RWE Dea AG in North Africa. I am Senior Production Engineer and responsible for the planning of the entire subsurface engineering for five offshore gas wells which are to be deepened in the near future. Gas from one field located in the Mediterranean Sea off Egypt is to enhance the national gas supply for Egypt. Working together with an international team of colleagues from Egypt, Norway, England and Germany us very interesting and varied.
My next assignment for RWE Dea AG could take me to Libya, London, Oslo or Kazakhstan, or even back to Germany. But I will certainly be facing a new challenge!