Meet the bp team: Solving challenges before they happen

Frieslander Anne Venema joined bp's Rotterdam refinery in 1987. When things broke, his job as a junior instrumentation technician was to fix them.

Four decades later, he’s still at the refinery and now helps the site stay one step ahead.  

bp Rotterdam is one of the largest refineries in Europe, and produces the fuels and products that millions of people rely on every day.  

Over the decades, Anne has progressed from a hands-on technician to maintenance team lead, and now works as an analyzer engineer, helping to monitor and predict how equipment is performing across the refinery. Where he was once repairing faults, his role has shifted to helping predict them. 

“Everything we do is about knowing what’s happening, and acting before it becomes a problem,” he says.

Over the years, hundreds of detectors, analyzers and sensors have been installed across the site, helping to spot leaks earlier and give teams early warning of equipment wear and tear. As part of the projects engineering and design team, Anne was part of this effort.

That shift has been driven by technology. Instruments that once worked in isolation are now connected, generating continuous data. It helps teams spot early signs of wear or failure and plan maintenance ahead of time. 

“It’s a bit like being a fortune teller,” Anne says. “You can see what’s coming and make sure you’re ready.”

With the right insight, teams can prevent outages, avoid unnecessary work and make sure that when they do intervene, they’re fully prepared. That preparation matters most in hard-to-reach places, like the analyzers high inside the refinery chimneys.

“You don't want to go 70 meters up for nothing or without the material you need. So, having insights ahead of time are so valuable,” he says.

Driven to improve

The job has also expanded. Monitoring and managing emissions across the refinery are now a larger part of the role, supported by new equipment and stricter standards. 

For Anne, though, people have always been at the centre of the job. After two decades leading teams, he still focuses on sharing knowledge, training everyone from new starters to experienced technicians, and learning from others across bp’s global network. 

“The team we have here in the refinery is unique. We have people from all over the world and we learn from each other,” he says. “That’s how we keep improving and stay one step ahead.”