Niels van Berlaer

Business Unit Director Asia, DEME Group

Niels graduated at Vrije Universiteit Brussels as a civil construction Engineer in 2004 upon which I immediately started working for the DEME group. After one year of working on dredging projects in Iran and Angola he joined the offshore department of DEME, today called DEME Offshore. In 2006 he took his fist steps in offshore wind when he executed a soil investigation campaign on Gunfleet Sands, straight after that project he was appointed Project Manager for the installation of the very first 6 offshore wind turbines on Gravity Based Foundations in Belgium on the Thornton Bank projects. Subsequently, he was involved as Project Manager on the Alpha Ventus offshore wind farm in Germany where prepiling was executed for the very first time in offshore wind. They improved the prepiling system in the UK on Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm and further developed it to perfection on Phase 2 & 3 of the Thornthon Bank Project. His last executed offshore wind project was completed in 2013 when he was Deputy Project Director of the EPCI Northwind Offshore Wind Farm in Belgium. In 2014 he took a more commercial role and was asked to build up a business unit for DEME Offshore in Oil & Gas, so the last 5 years his focus has been on development of marginal field in the North Sea and the ever growing decommissioning market. Since Sept 2019 he has been appointed Business Unit Director for Asia within DEME Offshore with specific focus on China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. Since 2015 he has been part of the DEME Offshore Management Team.