We would like to take a moment to remind you to renew your membership in SPE International. It only takes a few seconds after logging in to your SPE account on www.spe.org. Remember that Chevron offers to cover your membership fee of 15US-$ for student memberships.
Why should I renew my membership?
Don’t miss out on great opportunities to extend your knowledge, in conferences, workshops, distinguished lectures or webinars – the access to these events is less expensive for members (or even free!). This does not only include technical skills, but also soft skills like team work, leadership and other management-related topics.
Grow your network! SPE is an international organization, which does not only offer networking opportunities during conferences etc., but in fact also has its own social network, SPE Connect. There you can ask your questions to the community, and you can join interesting discussions on almost any burning matter of the industry.
Local events: Your SPE Student Chapter Leoben works hard to bring the best possible program directly to you. Be it our SCOPE Congress, the distinguished lectures in cooperation with the Vienna Basin Section, soft skill workshops or the upcoming series of technical and company presentations. If you prefer to keep it light, here are some highlights for socializing in the next academic year: the famous Oil BBQ in summer, or the upcoming movie night in November.
Field Trips to facilities in Austria and abroad (2014: Kazakhstan, 2015: Russia, 2016 Germany)
Join the League of Volunteers: SPE is a non-profit organization, and all we do is done in our free time. It is rewarding, and a great opportunity to take serious responsibility, so we can only recommend to join the SPE League of volunteers, spreading the spirit of SPE!
It was attended by representatives of the French, Italian, German, Croatian, Romanian, Polish and Hungarian Sections, as well as by the hosts, the VBS, representatives of two Student Chapters (Zagreb and Leoben), and by Blaine Horner, Staff Liaison Officer for SPE South, Central and Eastern Europe. Various topics were discussed, from questions like where does our industry go (particularly under the current oil price), and operational questions like community engagement, volunteerism and supporting students to questions like how can we reach out to new members and how one can benefit from the membership in SPE.
The session was started with an outlook of the oil price and its impact on the industry. The problems caused by the downturn are enormous, not only for the job situation, but also for organizations like SPE, who currently also suffer from reduced sponsoring, waived membership fees and a loss of members due to people leaving the industry. The key points that we will have to face in the future (and this is a particular challenge for us as the next generation), are a lower oil price for a longer period, where prices about 50$ will be the new normal (as opposed to prices over 80$ a few years back), Big Data and the implication of new technologies, transitioning towards the idea of the “Digital Oil Field”, and a new efficiency in all our operations, from fuel and energy efficiency to responsibly and sustainably dealing with the resources.
A key point was also volunteering, and the benefits of being in SPE: Not only is SPE an international network of upstream professionals, it is also the number one resource for knowledge and technology, be it PetroWiki, OnePetro, the various SPE Textbooks or be it conferences, where we reach out to the oil and gas community in order to disseminate knowledge and technology. As a non-profit organization, SPE relies on member contribution; hence it was a key question to see how the various sections approach their members to make the step ahead, and becoming actively involved in their local SPE branch. While the approaches may be different from section to section, the most significant differences are probably between the philosophies of the professional Sections and the Student Chapters, who find social media their natural habitat, thus using their capabilities more to the limit. Also, they seem to be more open to events that are not strictly technical events but focus more on having fun networking and getting to know new people.
It was also interesting to see how different sections reach out to their younger members, supporting students and young professionals. For example, students at IFP School in France have created an exciting and interesting game called “Reservoir Box”, which was supported by French Section of SPE. In this game, the participants experience the whole lot of problems a company in the E&P business faces, from making technical and financial decisions to dealing with unexpected situations, and most of working in teams and as teams. A link to the very interesting video can be found on the LinkedIn page of SPE France. Representative of the German Section Caroline Kannwischer talked about their take on integrating young professionals, a seemingly difficult task in Germany, where the industry is distributed over the whole country. This is something, where also the Vienna Basin Section has experience in, since it comprises Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, reaching even across 3 countries with three different languages – not to mention the Upper Austrian field office of RAG in Gampern! Despite geographical inconveniences, they are involved in organizing workshops, conferences and even do visits in the major oil towns in order to recruit people and supporting young professionals, and arranging socializing events.
Furthermore, the SPE German Section cooperates with oil companies in order to improve the training of the new generation in the industry, enabling their successful transition from academia to their companies.
The representatives of SPE France presenting their section, talking about cooperation with other organizations. Photo Credit: Daniel Hirschl
After lunch, a brainstorming session took place, focusing on the topics “Supporting Members Through a Downturn”, Volunteers, and Social Media. Burning matters to which no unique solution exists, but SPE takes all the input seriously, and working on an improvement to satisfy the needs of their members.
After nearly eight hours of presentations, discussion, brainstorming and small talk, a very fruitful and interesting meeting ended. Thank you to all the participants, not only for participating, but also for traveling to Vienna for this occasion; thank you also for the VBS to organize the meeting and OMV for providing the meeting room and its infrastructure in their head office!
On September 15th, about 25 members of the SPE Vienna Basin Section (VBS) gathered in the beautiful Viennese suburb Sievering for a geological excursion. Among them people of all generations, from student members (4 students of the SPE Student Chapter Leoben) over many professionals and young professionals to those who already enjoy their well-deserved retirement.
The destination of the excursion was a quarry nearby, which back in its days of glory was the origin of the building material of many buildings in Vienna. Our tour guides on this journey not only uphill, but also back in time were Hans Egger and Godfrid Wessely, two very experienced geologists who know the Vienna Basin like the back side of their hands. Under their expert guidance the group proceeded uphill, with short stops to give an introduction to how the basin was formed, knowledge which seemed to be present in all our heads from our studies and working experience, but not to the detail to which Mr Egger and Mr Wessely explained it to us in very simply and easy-to-understand words. They also showed the group paleo maps of Austria to better understand the greater context of what we were about to see.
The excursion soon left the main road, moving steeply uphill towards the old quarry; arriving there, an amazing and very impressive geological feature came into our view: Turbiditic sequences (Bouma Sequences), submarine avalanches which we learned in that excursion have some astonishing properties, such as their speed (these suspension of sediment particles move at an amazingly high speed), their extension of up to several hundreds of kilometers and their sedimentation rate. Turbidites can settle within a few seconds, but it can also be a process of hundreds or even thousands of years, as the ones that could be seen during our excursion.
The destination of the geological excursion, a turbidite sequence, evidence that some million years ago Vienna was covered by an ocean
Not only this amazing geological feature made the VBS geological excursion worthwhile; also the insight in the formation of the Vienna Basin and its extremely fast subsidence as well as the relevance of the geological setting for the formation and production of hydrocarbons were explained nicely and even understandable for us engineers. Furthermore, we were shown some small-scale sedimentary structures, such as the evidence of life – again something most of us remembered from university but hardly anyone has ever really noticed in real life.
All in all, the geological excursion was indeed very interesting. A huge thank you to the SPE VBS for organizing this event, and to our guides, Hans Egger and Godfrid Wessely.
After the geological excursion, we gathered again, after just a few minutes’ walk through the picturesque vineyards of northern Vienna, at Weinhof Zimmermann, a Viennese Heurigen, where more participants of the 25th anniversary celebration of the VBS waited for our arrival.
While waiting for the official program to start, the guests had the opportunity to meet old friends, colleagues, professors even, and to get to know new people, not only from the local SPE Section, but also from all over Europe – representatives of the SPE sections in Italy, France, Germany, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Croatia also joined the anniversary – or simply enjoy the breathtaking view of Vienna over a glass of wine. SPE Regional Director for South, Central and Eastern Europe, Matthias Meister attended the celebrations as well, not only because of the Regional Section Officers Meeting the next day, but also to honor a number of people and organizations for their contribution to the SPE Community.
Before dinner, a buffet with a rich selection of famous Austrian food, the celebration started with current Chairperson Andrea Payer-Moser honoring the founding members of the Vienna Basin Section, Prof. em. Brigitte Weinhardt, Prof. em. Gerhard Ruthammer and Prof. em. Zoltan Heinemann as well as the past chairpersons Gerhard Ruthammer, Klaus Potsch, Viktoria Wäger and Reinhard Pongratz, thanking them for their commitment to SPE, and handing over certificates of appreciation and an illustration by Klaus Potsch.
The past chairs also took the opportunity to talk about their experience in SPE, and some anecdotes about their time in SPE VBS (e.g. Gerhard Ruthammer said: “I joined SPE to polish my English, but they told me ‘Your English is Polish enough!’”).
The Leoben Students at the 25th Anniversary of the Vienna Basin Section Photo Credit: SPE VBS
After dinner the SPE Awards Ceremony took place –, where Matthias Meister honored several persons and organizations for their commitment to SPE and the industry:
Regional Awards:
OMV Petrom received an award for their support in organizing events for the SPE Romanian Section
The University of Lorraine was honored with the Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculties
Jean-Marc Dumas, past chairman of the SPE France Section received the SPE Distinguished Membership Award
Klaus Potsch was honored with the Regional Service Award
International Awards Wards were handed over to
Georg Mittermeir has won the Cedric K. Ferguson Medal for his excellent research and publications on reservoir engineering topics, for which only researcher under the age of 35 are considered – which clearly shows that SPE cares very much about the young generation, the future of our industry.SPE Croatian Section (President’s Award for Section Excellence)
SPE Vienna Basin Section (2016 SPE Gold Standard Section)
Mining University of Leoben SPE Student Chapter (2016 SPE Gold Standard Student Chapter)
On this occasion, we would like to take a moment to congratulate every awardee, and we would like to thank everyone who has contributed to SPE in the last year, making these great achievements possible. To many more successful years with the SPE VBS and the SC Leoben!
With great inputs for discussion, knowledge sharing the congress has not only proven to be a great place to meet new people and to network but it was also the perfect opportunity to bring together old friends. Nicola travelled from Vienna to Krakow whereas Christian made his way from the north, since he is currently doing an exchange at NTNU in Trondheim. The reunion included typical Leoben traditions (beer J) but also the final preparation for our poster presentation. In fact, as most of the other participants were enjoying dinner, we were sitting in our hotel room rehearsing and trying to figure out the most salient points to address in front of the jury. Certainly we joined the party afterwards, but business before pleasure!
The first day of the congress was highlighted by the debate “Managing the current economic situation in the Oil & Gas Industry” and the career session featuring Orlen Upstream, EY, MOL Group, and FMC technologies. On the second day of the congress it was our turn. We presented the results from our “Flow Behaviour Investigation of a Sandstone Reservoir”, research that we had carried out as part of our bachelors programme related to a geological field study. It describes how we developed an outcrop-analogue reservoir model from a mapped geological area. After carrying out a flow simulation using this model, we investigated the different effects of changing scenarios (water injection pressure, viscosity as well as density of oil and water phase). Additionally we accounted for uncertainties running a probabilistic calculation of the stock tank original oil in place.
The posters were put up in the exhibition area and visitors as well as the jury walked from one work to the next in order to ask questions and inform themselves about the conducted research. A total of twenty different posters were presented at the congress also featuring “Drilling Rate Models for PDC Bits” by Florian Gamperl, one of our colleagues from Leoben. The posters included drilling, reservoir, production, geology, petrophysics, and even refinery topics leaving the judges with the fairly difficult task to rank them. Among other criteria poster appearance, innovativeness and laboratory research were accounted for. Unfortunately we did not have a lot of time ourselves to see all the other posters, and to talk to with their authors, which we would really have appreciated.
Christian Mudrak & Nicola Zivelonghi next to their poster presentation
At the lasts day’s closing ceremony one presenter after the other was called on stage. Although being confident with our performance we were astonished to be called out as the winners of this year’s poster competition. We felt relieved and proud when receiving the award Even now, a few days after the event, these feelings are still present. Hereby we want to express our gratitude to the organizing committee again, and to our guides who took such care of us in Krakow. It was great to be part of the event! Additionally we want to thank the SPE Student Chapter Leoben for their support.
In conclusion, we really want to encourage fellow students to step up and present their work at one of the several possibilities. As a member one can benefit from SPE in so many ways but entering the stage will give you additional attention and a whole new level of interaction with other students, scientists, and industry professionals.
The annual “Student Technical Conference” is a 2-day event with up to 100 participants. It has grown over the last 11 years of its existence and established itself as the premier such event in Germany for upstream oil and gas. The STC is a technical conference with 14 student-presentations, key-note speakers and poster presentations. There will be a Young Professionals Panel with engineers already in the industry and many opportunities for networking.
The STC also functions as a mini job-fair for Petroleum Engineering and related Geoscience students.
For further information and the application form, use the flyer and/or visit the STC 2016 page.
Why should you attend?
As a student
Learn about upstream research done elsewhere
Network with other students
Find job-opportunities
As an industry representative
Meet Petroleum and Geoscience students close to graduation
Get informed about the topics researched in academia
Support for students
Enable students to participate and to perform a presentation or present a poster. (one night’s accommodation and reasonable transportation cost will be reimbursed).
The event started at 9 o’clock in the morning with a friendly get-together in the entrance hall of the university. After the registration process the welcome speech was held by Prof. Ganzer who gave a few insights into studying in Clausthal. Then a representative of the German SPE Section introduced the organization and highlighted their achievements in recent years and how they are going to proceed in the years following. After the obligatory coffee-break Dr. Meehan gave a very inspiring and encouraging speech that showed that even during these hard times there is a meaningful way to use your time. The highlights of his speech are summarized in the paragraph below.
Right now in the United States of America fewer rigs are operated then in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was president. Nevertheless downturns are also opportunities for innovation as the downturn of the oil price in 1980 clearly showed. During that time some of the most beneficial systems in our industry were invented, such as horizontal drilling and LWD. Still as a student you need to find different options to be able to overcome the current downturn as good as possible. There are several academic options to consider. One of them is to think about a victory lap at the university. This means to go for several other courses which can be beneficial in the future work life such as project management or a deeper understanding of the supply chain in the oil and gas industry. Another very important point to consider is to broaden the horizon by going into totally different directions then the oil and gas business. It is never bad to have an MBA but only from a top business university such as the London Business School. Also it is now a good time to think about extending your personal studies with a PhD degree. Besides that it is always good to have entrepreneurial skills. Not only if you want to run your own business but also if you want to get hired by a renowned company. And having an up-to-date LinkedIn profile is more than important in our modern world because CVs are so 2013. Finally the overall conclusion is that something that happens in the past does not determine your future and giving up is never an option.
After that a very delicate lunch was served and then the event continued with a tour through the reservoir and the drilling laboratories of the university. The event was concluded by the student chapter presentations and some final advices from the SPE-President Dr. Meehan. The remaining time of the day was used for a tour through the city of Clausthal-Zellerfeld and Goslar and a delicious dinner at a famous Italian restaurant.
Have a look at our photo gallery:
We would like to thank the SPE-Student Chapter Clausthal for their invitation and their hospitality. Especially we would like to thank Rafael Hincapie for accompanying us during our tour through these beautiful German towns and for driving us back to our hostel. It was a real pleasure to be able to participate in this event and we are looking forward to meet our German friends again at future events.
The delegation was rather international, including students not only from Austria, but also from Germany, Hungary, Romania, Tunisia, and even the US. In total, the conference had around 300 participants, around 60 of which were from foreign countries.
Day 1 – March 8th
In small groups, our students arrived in the Croatian capital, leaving the early birds some time for sightseeing while waiting for the late arrivals. In the evening, we were guided to a restaurant and greeted with a great dinner of traditional Croatian cuisine.
Day 2 – March 9th
The conference was officially opened with speeches of the initiator of the ASEC, former SPE SC Zagreb President Filip Krunić, the current SPE Croatian Section President Dr. Vladislav Brkić and the Dean of the Faculty of Mining, Geology, and Petroleum Engineering, Prof. Zoran Nakić.
The opening ceremony was dominated by appreciating the conference sponsors and supporters, stating that “The moment we stop investing in knowledge, the next generation – in short: in the future – is the moment we stop working as a society!”. Furthermore, the hope for an intensified cooperation and joint projects with the neighboring Student Chapters was expressed. Within the frame of this, also the leader of the Leoben delegation, Oliver Kleinferchner, was honored for his efforts in supporting the logistics of the conference. The musical part of the opening ceremony was covered by five great members of the faculty’s choir, singing traditional Croatian folk songs.
After the opening ceremony, there was an interesting panel discussion about the pros and cons of drilling offshore in the Adriatic Sea. Even though the panel consisted only of petroleum engineers, the discussion was very lively, because some participants were – not entirely expectable – against oil and gas production in the Adriatic Sea; their concern about the negative impact of leakages and spills, not only on the environment, but also on tourism, one of Croatia’s main economic branches, was too big.
Panel discussion on the topic of offshore drilling in the Adriatic – moderator Igor Dekanić, and the participants Davor Štern, Željko Belošić, Pavle Uroda and Zdenko Dvorščak
Technical presentations and insights in the research work of fellow students from all across Europe, as well as the operations of major oil and gas companies followed before and after the lunch break. The official program was then concluded by a workshop on the production analysis program Prosper.
However, the day did not end with this: After some free time, we could use to explore the city, or to simply have a rest, a disco night was organized, lasting until the early morning hours. This gave us plenty of time to get to know our fellow participants and local people.
Day 3 – March 10th
The presentations of the day were under the sign of environmental aspects of our industry, talking about waste disposal through wells, or geothermal energy. Since the weather was good, some of us decided to skip a promising-sounding afternoon session (dominated by the topics Oil Price and Energy Politics), and do some sightseeing instead.
St. Mark’s church in the heart of the Upper Town (“Gornij grad”) in one of Zagreb’s oldest part
Even though there was no program planned for the evening, a large part of our group gathered to explore a traditional brewery later that day, spending some time on enjoying some alternatives to our beloved “Gösser” beer.
Day 4 – March 11th
This was not only the day of the technical presentations, but also of the day of our delegation: Four people from Montanuniversitaet Leoben, among them DI Akos Kiss, DDI Dr.mont. Clemens Langbauer, Prof. Holger Ott and Prof. Herbert Hofstätter, giving some interesting insights into their research.
DDI Dr. mont. Clemens Langbauer presenting his research work to the participantts of the 3rd ASEC
After listening to such great and encouraging presentations, the official part of the conference ended with a great closing ceremony, again accompanied by the SPE Student Chapter’s own choir.
The day ended with another disco night in one of Zagreb’s most prolific clubs.
Day 5 – March 12th
Even though one of the most looked-forward-to event, the paintball game, had to be cancelled due to the unexpectedly bad weather, those of our delegation who chose to stay until Sunday, enjoyed another day in Zagreb, including a great BBQ in the afternoon, also organized by the SPE Student Chapter.
At this point, we would like to thank the organizers of the 3rd ASEC for their great work and effort and their hospitality throughout the whole week. It was a great pleasure to spend those five days in Zagreb, and we are looking forward to meeting everyone again as soon as possible!
(photo credit to all photos: Christoph Schwarzenegger)
The 10th edition of the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) – one of the world’s foremost oil and gas events – will be held from 14-16 November 2016 at the Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld in Bangkok, Thailand. An Education Week will be held for the benefit of the best 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students in science, geoscience and engineering from qualified institutions around the world. It is anticipated that 100 of the best students will be selected to participate in the Education Week. IPTC will cover travel and accommodation expenses for the selected students.
All students nominated must:
Be enrolled in full time, undergraduate education until spring/summer semester 2017.
Have an excellent level of written and spoken English.
Must obtain permission to be away from their studies from 12 to 16 November 2016 including travel days.
Must demonstrate in evidence that they are in the top 20% of their class.
Please submit your application with your transcript until 01.03.2016, 8 a.m. to events.spe@leoben.org, all applications will be processed further the Head of the Department Petroleum Engineering, who finally will nominate 4 students. These students will then receive an official IPTC application link and must register themselves until 04.03.2016. The online application form includes uploading of transcripts, personal statement, academic background, career objectives and reasons for wanting to attend Education Week, so prepare them in advance.
The Conference brings together some of the best students and young professionals from all over the world to discuss the latest developments in the energy world, with a strong emphasis on the oil and gas industry.
The Conference lasts four exciting days and is packed with educational and social activities, including:
compelling keynote addresses from industry experts;
educational sessions with student and expert presenters;
panel discussions;
workshops;
conference coffee-breaks featuring traditional local desserts;
topical lunches and dinners with delicious local food;
field trip;
a student party to top it all off!
Participant registration is now open — deadline is February 15th.
The Call for Abstracts is now open — abstract submission deadline is February 1st.
All in all — this event is guaranteed to be highly educational, fun and unforgettable! Places are limited so secure your place now!
Please share this event with your colleagues and friends who might be interested with our sharing tools below. Summary about last year’s ASEC is available here by David Kutas.
It was quite a surprise for me, when SPE informed me in late June 2015 that I had been chosen to represent our university and its SPE Student Chapter at IPTC 2015 in Doha, Qatar. While unexpected, it was a great honor to join this multinational event, giving the opportunity to get an insight in the industry, and to get to know people from all around the world and their views and thoughts on academia, jobs and the current industry downturn.
Dear SPE Members and Petroleum Engineering Students
We are looking for creative minds to share our vision for the future of the SPE Student Chapter Leoben. Take a look at our job openings and apply if you find working at the SPE Student Chapter would be something for you.
We have 9 fields where we are looking for great students and people who want to start working with us, find below a short description of what we we are looking for in each Student Chapter Division (SCD). We are not only looking for a head of each division – also for members that are willing to work in a specific division (e.g.responsible sponsoring person, project managers and helpers for the Bookstore and many more).
If you are interested in one or even more fields (SCD) please do not hesitate and write a short email application to office.spe@leoben.org.
Student Chapter Division 1 – Personnel
The manpower or personnel officer supervises personnel and administration systems. This department functions as the essential administrative liaison between the regular students, the actives and the officers as well he board, handling personnel actions coming from the bottom up (such as a request for becoming a member) or from the top down (such as staffing other divisions with new members or reassigning members to other divisions). The SCD 1 also works with the postal mailing office and deals with awards and certificates as well.
Membership Coordination Officer (MCO)
Database management
New member gathering
Administration Coordination Officer (ACO)
Running the postal mailing office
Information of members and outside partners
Distributing internal & external news
Support of the Secretary
Student Chapter Division 2 – Information operations
The Information operations section is responsible for collecting and analyzing information about from the inside and outside of the student chapter to determine what is going on locally and globally, what can happen, and how to prevent misunderstandings and failures. This office may also control social media information systems and data. In this section the whole public relation division is found with its corresponding twelve sections.
Human Relations addressed to members but also their families, as well as former and potential members.
Media Relations addressed to representatives of journalistic mass media as potential disseminators of public information dissemination.
Public Affairs addressed to mandate and decision-makers in politics and public administration and is in practice contrary to the label rather a confidential matter.
Financial / Investor Relations addressed to the circles with capital interests as co-owners, creditors or financial analysts.
Community relations are aimed at residents and neighborhood environment (Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility).
Product Publicity / PR product aimed at users and potential users of products and services.
Eco-Relations align themselves at critical discourses on norms and values of environmental performance.
Issues management is thematic communications.
Crisis Management governs critical communication situations.
Corporate identity designed the communicative appearance.
Sales-PR supports sales activities.
International Public Relations will be held global or country-specific.
For this purpose, there are a number of communication tools available, among others, these are:
Press and media work: writing and distributing press releases, feature stories for various media, user reports, speeches, biographies, topic planning, through press conferences and roundtables, editorial visits with customers, responding to press inquiries, conducting journalist trips and interviews, press conferences, press conferences, press invitations, Internet Services, providing photographic material.
Media Monitoring: Media monitoring presence and evaluation and analysis of reporting, for example by creating press reviews and quantitative and qualitative media impact analysis.
Communication controlling: About the Media Monitoring beyond measurability and evaluation of PR activities. Measurement of the PR to the success and appreciation of a company’s contribution.
Media Design: creating business reports, brochures, flyers, ads, newsletters, consumer magazines, Internet pages, and advertorials.
Event management: planning (and implementation) of conferences, seminars, festivals, consumer events, trade fairs and other events such as Meet and Greet
Internal Communications: Development of employee magazines, newsletters, planning and execution of events for employees, employee training, Intranet Services, Wording
Training: media training, training, writing training
Student Chapter Division 3 – Operations
The operations office may include plans and training. The operations office plans and coordinates operations, and all things necessary to enable the student chapter to operate and accomplish its mission. In most student chapters, the operations office is the largest of the staff sections and considered the most important. All aspects of sustaining the unit’s operations, planning future operations, and additionally planning and executing all training, fall under the responsibility of operations. The operations office is also tasked with keeping track of training schedules.
Event Implementation Officer (EIO)
Coordination with event management (SCD 2)
Responsible of staff during events
Project Managers and Helpers
Bookstore
Merchandise
Technical Papers
Student Chapter Division 4 – Logistics
The logistics office is responsible for managing the wide scope of materiel, transport, facilities, services and medical/health support:
Design, development, acquisition, storage, distribution, maintenance and disposition of materiel.
Transport of personnel and materiel.
Acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities.
Acquisition or furnishing of services.
The logistic staff is tasked with overseeing logistic aspects and principles, where the focus is that logistic support must be focused towards ensuring the success of the operation and prescriptions of elements such as responsibility and authority.
Student Chapter Division 5 – Plans and Strategy
The plans & strategy office is responsible for strategy planning and primary adviser to the board.
Student Chapter Division 6 – Communications and IT
The Communications and IT office directs all communications and is the point of contact for the issue of communications instructions and protocol during operations as well as for communications troubleshooting, issue, and preventative maintenance. Communications at this level is paired with digital as well as voice (radio, computer, etc.). SCD6 is also usually responsible for all electronic systems within a unit to include computers, faxes, copy machines, and phone systems.
Also responsible of the administration of all accounts within the student chapter and the website.
Student Chapter Division 7 – Training
The training branch will organize and coordinate training activity conducted by internal or external personnel and also supervise and support members.
Student Chapter Division 8 – Finance
The finance branch, not to be confused with Administration from which it has split, sets the finance policy for the operation. Operationally, the Administration and Finance may be interlinked, but have separate reporting chains. Billing and payment will be processed within this branch. The sponsoring division is also part of this division and responsible to acquire new sponsors and manage the existing ones.
Student Chapter Division 9 – SURPE
Co-operation or university affairs are the activities that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between the student chapter, the government and university or non-government civilian organizations and authorities.
So don’t hesitate and show your pride of membership!
Pin: Demonstrate your pride of membership with this SPE tie tack/lapel pin. The 14-karat gold-plated pin features SPE’s logo with a military clutch attachment. The pin measures 3/4 x 1/2 inches.
Pen: Enjoy writing in style with this gun metal brass ballpoint pen. The smooth, twist-action pen features SPE’s logo & gold accents & comes with a convenient black leather pouch for carrying & storage. The pen uses standard Parker ink refill cartridges.
This year’s SPE Student Chapter Leoben Field Trip brought 15 students, enrolled in both the undergraduate (B.Sc.) and graduate (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) programs to Russia. The goal of the trip was to get to know how students live and study in two of the most famous Russian Petroleum Universities, namely Moscow’s Gubkin University and the Ufa State Petroleum Technological University.
The first destination of our multinational group was the Russian capital, Moscow. Welcomed and guided by our colleagues of Gubkin University’s SPE Student Chapter, our students got not only the opportunity of visiting some of Moscow’s most famous sights, such as the Red Square, the famous Moscow Kremlin and the Cosmonautics Museum, but also the Russian State Petroleum University (РГУ нефти и газа им. И.М.Губкниа) and BakerHughes’ Russian Headquarters.
We got to meet university officials, who told us about the great opportunities for students and graduates of Gubkin University and showing us the high level of hands-on industry practice on state-of-the-art laboratory and training equipment. Finally, we had the opportunity to meet managers of BakerHughes who told us about their operations in the Russian and Caspian Sea Region, which was certainly a new and interesting aspect for our group.
Gubkin University’s NOV sponsored offshore drilling simulatorPumps and workover rig in the university yard help the students develop an understanding of oilfield operations
Furthermore – and this was certainly one of the highlights of our trip – our stay in Moscow was coinciding with the visit of SPE International President D. Nathan Meehan, who held a presentation for the Student Chapters at the Moscow universities to which we were also invited. After that, we also took the obligatory “SPElfies” with our Russian Friends and SPE-President Meehan.
“SPElfie” of our delegation with SPE President D. Nathan Meehan
After our five-days stay in Mocow, our group travelled further East to Ufa, where we could get a first impression of the famous Russian winter – heavy snowfalls and temperatures below 0°expected us upon our arrival in Ufa. Despite the cold weather we got a very warm welcome from Ufa’s SPE Student Chapter.
As in Moscow, we got the opportunity to meet with university officials and the local SPE Chapter who introduced us to their profTELEPORT project, which is a project that should guide students into their future professional work. The mutual friendship was strengthened by games encouraging out-of-the-box thinking, team building and team work.
After a tour through the university, Prof. Mastobaev of the Chair of Petroleum Transport and Storage invited us to a Q&A session about the university and the opportunities of a semester abroad.
Furthermore, our colleagues of the Ufa SPE Student Chapter organized for us an excursion to Burintekh, an Ufa based company specialized in the production of drilling and workover tools. We had the great opportunity to visit one of their factories, where Burintekh produces – among other products – roller cone and PDC drill bits. Our tour followed the manufacturing process from the raw material via the individual manufacturing and treatment steps down to quality control and quality assurance in the dedicated material science labs.
Visiting Burintekh together with the Ufa SPE Student Chapter
This year was a very important year for the Ufa SPE Student Chapter, as it was not only their tenth anniversary, but the student chapter has also been rewarded for their hard work over the past year with the “Outstanding Student Chapter Award”, which is a very highly respected decoration for every student chapter. These two great achievements have been celebrated on a large party in a Jazz Club in the city center of Ufa, to which we were also invited. Along with dancing and karaoke performed by the students, we got our last chance of talking to our Russian colleagues, as this party also marked the end of our stay in Russia.
Our group members in uniforms of different Russian oil and gas companies – at the museum of Ufa University
On a little side note, we would like to mention that a close cooperation exists between Ufa State Petroleum Technology University and Montanuniversitaet Leoben, which makes student exchanges very simple. Currently, we have some students from Ufa in Leoben, and there are a few students from our university planning on doing a semester abroad in Ufa. After having seen this university, we would really like to encourage all of our students to consider such a great opportunity, as it can offer much more than only studying abroad, but also getting to know new people, broaden your mind and get an unforgettable experience in a foreign country! We are also doing our best to get a similar cooperation between our university and Moscow’s Gubkin University.
This Field Trip helped bonding and tightening the Austro-Russian friendship, both between the students and the Student Chapters. We are looking forward to many more international events and cooperations to come with our new friends, be it mutual visits, exchange programs or other joint events.
On this occasion, the SPE Student Chapter Leoben would like to thank our colleagues at Gubkin University and Ufa University for their hospitality, their kindness and their incredible help organizing all the amazing events we experienced in this week. Without you, this whole Field Trip would not have been the same, it would not even have been possible!
In the middle of October the SPE Student Chapter had the great pleasure to welcome a group of students from Gubkin State Oil and Gas University (РГУ нефти и газа им. И.М. Губкина) in Vienna and Leoben. The delegation of 12 students came to Hungary and Austria to visit the respective oil companies, MOL Group in Budapest and OMV in Gänserndorf, and took the opportunity to also visit our university for a day.
A team of our active members met our Russian friends in Vienna on October 10th, and showed them around in order to give them an impression of Vienna. We then accompanied the group to Leoben to spend the night, and the next day, we had the opportunity to present our university to them. This included not only a tour of our campus, but we also had the opportunity to give our friends an impression of the history of our Alma Mater in the Museum of the University as well as an insight in some of the research going on at the Department of Petroleum Engineering. In particular, our guests got to see the research facilities on ultrasonic wave applications and the brand new pump test unit. Furthermore, we got a tour of the geologists’ labs and an introduction to the work of the Chair of Petroleum Geology.
On behalf of our team, we would like to extend our special thanks to Prof. Reinhard Sachsenhofer of the Chair of Petroleum Geology and to DI Mikhail Pavlov and DI Patrick Eisner of the Chair of Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Recovery as well as Dr. Johann Delanoy of the Museum of MUL for their interesting presentations.
Sadly, the stay of our Russian friends in Leoben was very short, because there was a tour to OMV’s Matzen Oil Field in Lower Austria planned for the next day, which also happened to be the last day in Austria for our colleagues from Moscow.
The departure of the delegation of Gubkin university made us only looking ore forward to our next opportunities to reunite with them such as the SPE Leoben Field Trip to Russia starting from Oct. 24th to Nov. 1st.
We are very grateful for getting this great opportunity of socializing with foreign students and (re-) presenting our university, and we hope that our guests enjoyed their stay in Austria as much as we enjoyed it.
The Student Technical Conference held by the SPE German Section was scheduled for November, 2015. Many industry professionals, internationally recognized companies were represented. Despite of the quite harsh environment in the petroleum industry right now, STC was held for the 10th time in 2015.
The two days long conference had provided excellent opportunities for students and industry professionals for networking, getting more information on internships and job possibilities and for many students the first real opportunity to share their interest, work with others.
STC 2015 had been a major success for Leobner students too, because compared to the last couple of years when only 1-2 students had the chance to represent MUL, this year 8 students had been able to show what they were working on during their studies and free time.
Gallery
Ingo Forstner’s welcome words
David Kutas with his poster presentation – Subsea Petroleum Containment System
Haiwad Ahmad is presenting about Downhole Fluid Analysis
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Aberdeen, Scotland is located on the coast of the North Sea – the city is the third most populous city in Scotland, and the biggest rival in the run for the oil capital of Europe name against Stavanger, Norway.
Offshore Europe is the PE industry’s largest offshore related exhibition and conference. The world most important service companies, other entities come together there to show the world the newest technologies and impress each other. This year, stress was laid on how the petroleum industry can inspire young generation to help sustain and develop the industry to meet new challenges.
From the perspective of a graduate student, the 4-day-long event can also contain many interesting impressions because with even a short visit in the exhibition you can feel and understand how different industry entities are working, or how new players would like to enter the industry. Understanding different technologies, techniques explained by industry experts, or introduced by field-working technicians through real-life or real-size prototypes and models are also providing a particular experience.
Moreover, the conference part of venue is also very relevant and interesting. Since Macondo, more and more stress is laid on HSE, this is a field which is evolving, developing more quickly than anything else despite of the petroleum price downfall.
We were warmly welcomed by the organizers, students of the native AGH University of Science an Technology and we were immediately invited to join them for a welcoming evening were we got some drinks for breaking the ice between the different students from al over the world. The first evening was entirely devoted to getting to know each othe and to enjoy meaningful conversations about our favorite topic: oil and gas.
During the next three days we were able to take part in interesting discussions about th future of our industry and we had the chance to listen to various presentations fro students who were attending in the paper contests. Especially worth mentioning the great conversations many of us had with representatives of different companies like for i.e. Jeff Spath, 2014 ́s president of SPE International an vice-president of industry affairs for Schlumberger Limited in Houston and Matthias Meister, SPE Regional Director for South-, Central-, and East Europe Region an who is a product development manager for logging-while-drilling tools at Bake Hughes’ Celle Technology Center in Germany. They encouraged us to work together cross boundaries and develop new, better and safer methods to advance locating, drilling and producing oil. We had also been able to find new friends in the participants of the various states like Russia, China, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Romania and many more.
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Krakow in the evening hours
Personal Badge
The Expo gave us the chance to gain an insight into the different cultures that attended the meeting. And for sure the evening activities were well organized and our Polish guides were perfectly prepared. Especially the evenings were worth mentioning, because Krakow is well known as one of the best cities to study in due to its great night life and beauty of the old city and it’s openness towards foreigners.
Unfortunately after the three days we had to pack our suitcases and sadly waving Poland goodbye. I think I talk in everyone’s name, when I say we will be back for another great EMW conference in 2016, to stay in touch with our Polish friends and continue to form our personal career network.
