Ernst Schober

Joined OMV in 1980 as an automation technician at the Schwechat refinery in Austria and has been working in the field of electrical, instrumentation and control technology. From 1987 he was leading the instrument maintenance workshop. In 1999, he took over the management of the E&A asset management department at the Schwechat refinery, later adding E&A responsibility for projects. His first 20 years of work were characterized by the transition from pneumatics and fine mechanics to automation systems – distributed control systems and safety systems. Further this transition process called for more engineers instead of skilled workers.

As part of a restructuring and expansion of the refining business, he has also been managing the E&A departments at the Burghausen (Germany) and Petrobrazi (Romania) refineries since 2010 based on a stream organization model. Other areas of his specialization are functional and process safety, explosion protection and OT Security. He is a certified functional safety engineer and has several seats in international standardization committees (e.g. ÖNORM, NAMUR).