About the Program:
AAPG’s Imperial Barrel Award Program (IBA) is an annual prospect/exploration evaluation competition/presentation competition between university student teams competing to win scholarship funds dedicated to petroleum geoscience education created for geoscience graduate students. The program is rigorous and contributes to AAPG’s mission of promoting petroleum geoscience training and advancing the careers of geoscience students.
This is a global competition, where the University teams analyze a complete dataset in six to eight weeks prior to the competition and (geology, geophysics, land, economics, production infrastructure, and other relevant materials). Each team delivers their results in a 30-minute presentation to a panel of industry experts.
Students gain experience using real technology on a real dataset. Additionally, students benefit from the feedback from the industry panel, the opportunity to impress potential employers in the audience, and the chance to win cash prizes for their schools, who will select the winning team on the basis of technical quality, clarity and originality.
The IBA is a hands-on opportunity for students to experience the creative process and the high-tech science that is the foundation of the Energy Industry today.
Background
The ‘Barrel Award’ has been part of the MSc Petroleum Geoscience course at Imperial College for the past 30 years. Started in 1976, the program originally focused on the North Sea -- a frontier basin where interpretations required using color pencils. Today, Imperial and the IBA use new technology to provide students a unique learning experience using data sets from basins around the world.
Although the technology has changed, the key learning elements of the program remain remarkably similar to the original concepts pioneered by Imperial College. Teams must demonstrate: (1) evidence of rigorous and creative technical evaluations, (2) the ability to work to a strict deadline, (3) the ability to work effectively within a team (4) the ability to make decisions based on incomplete data, and (5) the ability to give convincing oral presentations to a panel of industry experts.
Program Specifics