Students Place Fourth In International Competition
A team of five graduate students from the Department of Geology & Geophysics placed fourth in the International Imperial Barrel Award competition held at the annual convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) in Denver.
This is the first year Texas A&M fielded a team in this global competition. The Aggies earned the right to compete by winning their regional competition in March, edging out other top schools including the University of Texas at Austin.
At the international competition in Denver, Moscow State University placed first, with the University of Nebraska, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Texas A&M placing second, third and fourth, respectively. Participants included geology master’s students Mike Casey, Sireesh Dadi and Tom Hull, and doctoral students Hamid Adesokan (Geophysics) and Qian Song (Geology). Geology & Geophysics Professor Yuefeng Sun was faculty advisor for the group.
“We are so proud of these students,” said Geology & Geophysics Department Head Andreas Kronenberg. “Coming in 4th internationally amongst 12 other regional first-place winners is a great achievement, and we can be very proud of our students and their excellent analysis and teamwork.”
Kronenberg went on to note that “many thanks go to Dr Yuefeng Sun for doing a terrific job of advising our students. I know that this was quite a commitment by our students and by Yuefeng. It’s wonderful to see such a great result!”
AAPG’s Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) program is an annual competition in which graduate student teams analyze a basin dataset and come up with prospects. They must complete a technical assessment of the basin’s petroleum potential and then recommend a “drill” or “no drill” plan for future exploration based on prevailing technical and economic conditions.
Students gain experience using real technology on a real dataset and benefit from feedback from an industry panel. They also have the opportunity to impress potential employers in the audience and the chance to win cash prizes for their schools.
For more information on the Imperial Barrel Award visit the AAPG website at aapg.org. More information about the Department of Geology & Geophysics at Texas A&M is available online at geoweb.tamu.edu.
Media contact: tamunews@tamu.edu.
