Leoben SPE Representative at IPTC 2015 in Qatar

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.

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We are hiring!

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
  • Online PR: Improve classic PR tools by additional services (online newsroom), develop custom tools and strategies (corporate websites, theme websites, corporate blogs, online magazines, online campaigning)
  • 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.

Visiting Oil and Gas Horizons 2015

This year the seventh Oil and Gas Horizons Congress (24.Nov 2015-26.Nov 2015) took place at Moscow’s Gubkin Russian State Oil & Gas University. The congress is entirely organized by the local SPE Student Chapter and it is the largest international youth scientific and practical event in the oil and gas industry of the Russian and Caspian region. The Office Manager of the SPE Student Chapter Leoben, Daniel Hirschl, went there as a representative. The following is the whole story about his visit.

22.November 2015

On the 22nd of November at 10:00 Austrian Airlines flight OS601 departed from the Vienna International Airport heading towards Moscow, with me on this plane. After 2 hours and 30 minutes the plane touched down at the Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow.

There I was welcomed by my two guides who brought me and another student to the dormitory. We took the famous Moscow Metro to go there, so I already got a glimpse of what to expect from this wonderful city. After arriving and making ourselves comfortable in our rooms we were guided to the city center of Moscow to see a lot of the historic sites, such as Red Square and of course the Kremlin. After dinner we finished our journey with the beautiful view of the Moscow city Skyscrapers.

23.November 2015

On Monday the main cultural program took place. This already showed what to expect from the congress. Students from different countries were guided by volunteers through the city. So already on the second day some new friendships were established with other students.

The journey brought us to the St. Basils cathedral, the Kremlin, the famous shopping mall GUM, the Cathedral of Christ the savior and finally we got to see the Moscow City skyscrapers again. The day was concluded by a team building event in the dormitory where students showed their skills by playing charades.

Moscow City

24.November 2015

On Tuesday the congress started. After some good breakfast in the early morning a bus brought us to the university. After the registration the opening ceremony was held. All the participants were welcomed at the congress by representatives of the university and the local student chapter. The next part was the plenary session. Experts gave some insights on special topics e.g. “New paradigm of the Oil and Gas development”. In this presentation smart technologies for the development of hydrocarbon fields were introduced to the students. In the afternoon the student paper contest took place. In different sessions (e.g. Automation and Computer Sciences, Oil and Gas Chemistry and Ecology, Geosciences, Drilling and Completion) students presented their personal work. The day was concluded with a dinner that gave an impression of the Russian cuisine.OGH 2015

25.November 2015

The second day of the congress started with the presentations of the different SPE Student Chapters. All the chapters showed how much effort they put in all of their work and how they stay motivated. One of the highlights was when the delegation from the Ufa State Petroleum Technological University performed the song “Wavin Flag”.

It was a unique moment when all the people in the room started to join their performance.  In the afternoon the PetroOlympic Games took place. In this special contest teams of six students have to solve some complex tasks and answer questions related to the Petroleum Industry. The two best teams are then competing against each other in a debate. Our multicultural team that had the profound name “AGGRRR” was able to participate in the debate. The team name was based on the nationalities of the team members (Austria, Germany, Germany, Russia, Russia, and Russia). This also provided me with the unique experience of participating in a team debate. The topic of debating was “Preservation of natural resources for the future than using them today”. Our team had to negate the topic. We managed to find a good way to express our view on the topic and finally we won the PetroOlympic games.12314451_926336574103268_6141122079611786833_o

Afterwards the SPE Student Chapters Round-Table provided the unique opportunity of discussing actual topics with leaders from other Student Chapters and how to manage the upcoming challenges together.

The congress was then concluded by a wonderful closing ceremony where all the winners were announced and it also showed the creativity of the students from the Gubkin Russian State Oil & Gas University. Some marvellous songs were combined with great dances. Finally the day was closed by a youth party where all the participants had the opportunity to celebrate together with members of the organizing committee.

26.November 2015

The last day was reserved for visiting companies. Together with some other students, I went to the office of Halliburton in Moscow. They gave us a presentation about their company and how is it structured. Afterwards we heard a presentation about Halliburtons famous Landmark software. In the end they also told us about career chances in Halliburton. The size of the company allows people to work in different disciplines all around the globe. The afternoon was free for everybody. Therefore we joined a big group of students and went ice skating in the famous Gorky Park. Afterwards we used the unique atmosphere of the Moscow area for some evening activities.

Gorky Park

27.November 2015

Finally on the last day of my visit here in Moscow I was brought to the airport and left with new friendships, experiences and a smile on my face.

I would like to thank the SPE-Student Chapter of Gubkin University for the invitation. It was such a pleasure to be able to participate in such an amazing event. The unique atmosphere could be felt in every corner of the congress. It really broadened my personal horizon, not only from a technical but also from a general point of view, because events like that prove that borders are just lines on a map.