Ragnar Aarlien new CTO at Front Group

Ragnar Aarlien has a long and varied track-record from the oil and gas industry. He graduated from Heriot-Watt University, Offshore department with a degree in engineering, electrical and control systems in 1992 and started his first job in the industry with Aker Engineering.

In 1998 Aarlien moved on to ABB, where he held numerous positions over many years. He was responsible for building up an engineering center in Bangalore in India, and was manager for engineering and for all of ABB’s oil and gas projects outside of Norway. For three years he served as the company’s Global Service Manager for oil and gas.

Developing Front Group

In 2019 Aarlien became VP Engineering & Integrity at Aker Energy, where he took part in the build-up to develop the Pecan field in Ghana. When the Pecan project was postponed, he decided to seek new adventures. Ragnar Aarlien started as CTO of Front Group in January 2021.

“Although this is a smaller company than my previous engagements, the people in FrontGroup have impressive competences and a lot of ideas for the future. My main task is to enable the company for growth, but I will also use my experience asa consultant to our clients,” Aarlien explains.

Recruiting more colleagues

To be able to grow and take on additional tasks, Front Group needs to hire more professionals. The available positions will be published during spring 2021.

“We want to recruit experienced professionals for jobs within operation readiness, people like mechanical, process and automation engineers. We also need more people to help clients with digitalization and improvement projects – professionals with a degree and experience from IT or operational technology,” Aarlien says.

The oil age is not ending – it is just changing

 Ragnar Aarlien believes new opportunities arise as the industry changes.

“An increasing spotlight on reduced emissions, cost efficiency, digitalization and improvement will be a challenge to many suppliers. However, Front Group has a proven performance history for delivering on these targets, so I am convinced we have a big advantage going forward, Aarlien concludes.

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