– Being manager of TCM was a great job

The expectations I had when I started were met. Being the manager of TCM was a great job.

Roy Vardheim was TCM’s managing director from March 2015 to August 2017. He then became director of the TCM department in Gassnova, and with it also the company’s chairman, until he became CEO of Gassnova in February 2021. Vardheim has broad management experience from several companies, including as CEO of Norske Skog Saugbrug and Borealis. He also has international senior management experience from Borouge in the Middle East and BIS in Scandinavia. Vardheim will retire during the coming year.

– How was your first meeting with TCM?

– I had never been to Mongstad before I arrived on Monday 2 March 2015. Then I felt the joy of coming back to work and getting to know many pleasant colleagues. As a weekly commuter I got myself a good place to live in Austrheim, and could spend long days at work. The field of work was completely new to me, and I naturally took some time to getting to understand the business. I was used to the role of top manager, but the slightly strange «shop» in the borderland between research and industry was new and exciting. The work also gave me insight into political processes and dialogue with authorities, which I later benefited from in my work in Gassnova.

– What will you highlight as the most rewarding and interesting work you took part in at TCM?

– This was a period when we had to be inventive and creative to maintain steady activity at the plant. Bjørn-Erik Haugan took office at TCM about the same time as me as head of business development, and the efforts in relation to the US Department of Energy (DoE) to secure financial assistance to US technology developers  were to prove very important for TCM. Among other things, it led to ION Clean Energy carrying out a test campaign in 2016 – 2017. The company was led by Buz Brown, a delightful guy who boasted freely of the facilities and expertise of TCM. We took advantage of that by producing a video that is constantly used in marketing on the website; tcmda.com.

– Then I also remember the joy we felt in 2017 at having succeeded in getting Total into TCM as a new owner. The company thus gained three equal industrial owners; Equinor, Shell and Total, which has certainly been a plus. The level of conflict between the owners had at times been quite high and thus demanding for us who managed the company, but in recent years this relationship has been characterized by far greater harmony and constructive cooperaton.

– You left your job at TCM to become head of the TCM department and later CEO of Gassnova. What would you highlight as the three most important results from 10 years of operation at TCM for Gassnova?

– For Gassnova, the management of the state ownership in TCM is a main task. All in all, I think we have solved this in a good way. We have brought in a new industrial owner in addition to the two who were involved from the beginning, and have thus contributed to consolidating TCM’s status and position as a company were both the Norwegian state and the industry take responsibility for business and operations. Furhermore, we have succeeded in getting more and more external technology customers to use the facility. Finally, I would like to highlight the strategically important decision to establish a separate test area for new capture technologies, the Site for emerging technologies, which we now see attracting developers of exciting technologies, and which can be of great importamce for future CCS projects.

– When you generally look back on 10 years of business at TCM, what do people that worked at TCM or still are working there have particular reason to be most proud of?

– With the history of the establishment of the technology centre, it was not at all given that TCM would be a success. In Norway, the «moon landing at Mongstad» cast dark shadows over the business for a long time, and made it difficult to explain that testing of capture technologies is a prerequisite and tool for success with CCS. However, the staff at TCM were able relatively quickly to create positivity about the plant and their own expertise in professional circles internationallly. For foreign suppliers, testing at Mongstad has become a necessary «mark of nobility» in the marketing of their technologies, and gradually the reputation of TCM has also improved much here in our country. Most people now understand that the Longship project would hardly have seen the light of day in its current form if TCM had not existed. The current government has also been very clear that TCM was the right investment at the right time. Everyone who has been involved in the operation therefore has much to be proud of.

– What is your wish for TCM the next ten years?

– The current operation period for TCM ends in December next year, and in Gassnova we are now working intensively to create a common understanding between the industrial owners and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy on the basis for a new agreement for operation the company. We definitely believe that there is a need for TCM in the coming years as well. But because this must partly be clarified and decided politically, neither I nor others in Gassnova can advance the content of a final decision. What I can say is that together with the management of TCM we are doing our best to supply the authorities and the other owners with all the information they request, and then we can only hope for a good result.