SPE student chapter of Leoben was represented by 2 members which are Ouerda Mohamed Amine, and Hilali Maher in the 9th Edition of SPE Student Chapter Annual Paper Contest “Constatin Gh. Popa”. The event was held on the 18th to 20th May 2017 at the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, Romania.
Firstly, the event started by the opening ceremony which was presented by the SPE Romanian section representative: Manuela Badea and professor Constantin Nicolescu the Vice Dean of Petroleum and Gas engineering Faculty. Afterwards, sponsors’ representatives from Anvergo, NEWPARK Drilling Fluids, Conpet, Erasmus+ project and Gaslnfoservice presented their new technologies and projects in the current industry. The morning session ended by a panel discussion with different companies’ representatives: Alexandru Panoiu ( Anvergo), Mihai Tudose ( NEWPARK Drilling Fluids), Professor Valentin Batistatu ( Petroleum and gas engineering Faculty), Marian duta ( OMV Petrom) and Cristinela Budin ( Cameron). The main focus of the discussion was an investigation of the main challenges facing the oil and Gas industry in the current situation and the importance of soft skills for students and new graduates to adapt with the industry and the work environment.
After lunch, delegates from different student chapters made some presentations on their sections showing the main activities carried on and sharing ideas and experiences.
Finally, the first day end up with a Romanian dinner in a traditional restaurant in Ploiesti.
In the second day, 18 participants from different universities: Leoben, Clausthal, Ivano-Frankivsk, Gubkin Russian state university, Saint-Petersburg Mining University and Petroleum-Gas university of Ploisti presented their papers and posters which were related to geology, drilling, production and transportation.
The second day end up with city tour to the capital Bucharest including the famous Parliament, city parks , gardens and the old town.
In the third day, the closing ceremony took place and all the participants, delegates and organizing committee were graduated for the interesting conference.
Afterwards, we visited Campina city where the research and development branch of Petrom Company and other service companies. Finally, we had a visit to the historical city of Sinaia where the famous Peles Castel and we returned back to Ploiesti in the evening.
From the 26th -28th of September professionals and students from around the world gathered in this wonderful city to address the future challenges that this industry has to face. Alongside of them were three members of the SPE Student Chapter Leoben, using this opportunity to participate in panel discussions, workshops and technical sessions. Besides that, there was also time for some sightseeing, networking and meeting some good friends from other student chapters. The following is the story about their visit.
On the 25th of September Emirates EK 128 departed at 15:05 from Vienna International Airport and was heading to Dubai. The main reason for using Emirates was that this route is operated by an A 380 and Emirates offered some discount because they were the official partner airline of the conference. After 6 hours of flight we arrived in Dubai and spend the rest of the day in the hotel meeting some friends from overseas.
Monday the 26th of September was the official starting day for the conference. During the opening ceremony the CEO of Saudi Aramco addressed the current issues in the industry and pointed out a possible solution for the future that included a concept for dealing with the low oil price. Afterwards a panel discussion took place. High ranked managers from different companies among them the CEOs of Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and the Kuwait Oil Company were discussing about the topic “E&P 2.0: Shaping the future“. The overall conclusion of this discussion was that every part of the industry has to adapt to the new environment because most likely this situation will last for a longer time.
In the afternoon the workshop “How to write a good technical paper” gave some useful insights into the procedure of successfully writing a paper and the whole reviewing process that is carried out if you submit a paper for an SPE Conference.
In the evening we spent our time with a sightseeing tour through the Dubai Mall. Finally, we made our way up to the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa which is currently the highest building in the world, with a total height of 828m. Afterwards we finished our day with dinner at TGI Fridays.
On the second day of the conference we participated in the leadership workshop. People from different industries amongst them 2010 SPE President Behrooz Fattahi taught us about the important difference between being a leader or a manager. Then we attended the Students Luncheon were Outstanding SPE Student Chapters and the PetroBowl Winners were honored by 2016 SPE-President Nathan Meehan. After lunch we toured through the exhibition and talked to some professionals to expand the personal network but also to get some people interested in our Student Chapter and the work we are doing here in Austria. The evening featured the Young Members Reception where a lot of students together with young professionals gathered and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere in one of the ball rooms of the convention center. Later went to the beach to relax after an interesting but also exhausting day at the conference.
On the final day of the conference we decided to leave earlier to explore the city of Dubai. By using the monorail, we went to the hotel “Atlantis” which is located on the world famous Palm Island. Afterwards we went to the Burj Al Arab. This world class hotel features a great bar located on the 27th floor. It features an amazing view over the city of Dubai.
Finally, on the 29th of September we left Dubai in the afternoon. Our journey had finally come to an end after 4 days in this amazing city. When the plane departed from the Dubai International Airport during the sunset we got a last glimpse on the city of Dubai and it is not going to be last.
Next year the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition is going to take place in San Antonio. We are already looking forward to it.
Departure from Vienna
Opening Ceremony with 2016 SPE President D Nathan Meehan
Panel Discussion E&P 2.0: Shaping the Future
SPE Booth at the Exhibition
Petrobowl 2016
The highest building in the world: Burj Khalifa 828 metres
From the 30th of May to the 2nd of June the 78th EAGE-Conference took place in Vienna. This conference is mainly dedicated to geologists, geophysicists and reservoir engineers, but in combination with the SPE EUROPEC this event provides a great frame for all the other petroleum engineering disciplines as well. Three students from the SPE Student Chapter Leoben visited the conference. This is a short summary about their visit.
On the 30th of May the president of the EAGE-Organisation officially opened the conference. This was followed by a panel discussion. Representatives from the industry and the head of our university Dr. Eichlseder discussed about the opportunities for young people in the current crisis. Afterwards dinner was served in the exhibition area. The day was concluded by meeting our friends from the SPE Student Chapter RWTH Aachen.
On the second day the oral sessions and poster sessions started. As usual for such a conference it is impossible to visit all of them. Therefore the following paragraphs summarize the highlights during these days.
The poster session about source rocks featured one presentation about Light Hydrocarbons Geochemistry of Oils Trapped in the Austrian Foreland Basin. This topic is directly related to the Montanuiversitaet Leoben, because the study was carried out at the chair of Petroleum Geology. An extended abstract can be found via the following link: Light Hydrocarbons Geochemistry of Oils Trapped in the Austrian Foreland Basin
One of the best oral sessions was the one which was conducted by Christian Burgstaller from RAG. His topic was about using fluid level data to optimize production. A new and innovative system which was developed by RAG together with some other companies constantly measures the fluid level in the wellbore. The generated data can then be used directly to optimize the pump that produces from the wellbore. The original paper can be found via the following link: New Approaches of Using Fluid Level Data for Production Optimization and Reservoir Engineering Applications
Besides the technical and research parts, there were also enough opportunities for social events, especially for students. The student evening which took place at the campus of the University of Economics featured some traditional Austrian delights and music to get in touch with students from around the world.
For an additional fee it was also possible to visit the official conference evening in the Marx Hall. Austrian kitchen was combined with live music and a Waltz performance.
Finally if we make an overall conclusion about this event, we can say that it was a great opportunity to gather new experiences, grow the personal network and just enjoy the atmosphere.
If you want to find out about such a conference by yourself you need to be patient until next year. The 79th EAGE Conference & Exhibition (12-15 June 2017) is going to be in Paris.
Let me start this story from very far and very abstraction! People often think that petroleum engineering and especially drilling is a field where everything goes just so smooth and easy and it is an easy engineering field compared to i.e. computer engineering or even to reservoir engineering where most of the things are abstract, therefore every term or idea feels highly technical. I think it is totally wrong because of the following: the involved risks and other unknown and uncontrollable factors create an environment where there is no room for failure.
I’ve always been obsessed with blowouts. Not because of their catastrophic consequences (that is kind of sad actually) but a blowout really shows to us what powers, risks and consequences we are possibly and directly dealing with in petroleum engineering. These consequences are highly undervalued (or at least were back in the days before Macondo) and the vast majority of the industry is “only” focusing on the prevention of these possible risks and realization of consequences. I believe that it is not the right way to deal with it and avoid future events like the first and (so far) last. This is the reason why I spent my entire summer sitting in my room and trying to understand how that particular blowout was stopped, what options we would have today, and how it would be possible to get better.
And now comes the understandable part!
I have attended two major conferences in the last 10 days in Stavanger and Bergen in Norway helped by the department.
In the first couple of days I have been participating in the second industry wide HSSE Challenge in Stavanger during the 16th SPE International Conference and Exhibition on Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Social Responsibility. It was a particularly good conference and event since many of the young professionals can come together, meet each other and see what knowledge level we have. Seven teams were participating in the HSSE challenge which had 3 sections: Health, Safety and Security, and Social Responsibility. During each sections 2 or 3 teams were facing each other by getting numerous “fast questions” regarding the given section’s most important abbreviations, terms, regulations, general concepts.
Awarding Ceremony
After the challenge, every team has been awarded by ExxonMobil with valuable gifts and a confirmation of participation sheet signed by Nathan Meehan and the CEO of SPE. Ah, and of course, Nathan Meehan has also made a selfie with some of us!
On the next day, I could also take a day visit at Statoil’s Business center where I could introduce my Subsea Petroleum Containment System concept (which I has been working on in the last couple of months next to the paper) and participate in numerous speed datings and presentations. It was also a great venue. The meeting at Statoil is maybe projecting a viable way forward for us to be more innovative: come up with startup ideas, concepts, share openly with others, learn from each other, get more entrepreneurial spirit, make a company and change PE for the better.
Next to the whole day programs of course there was a bit of time for fun. The Stavanger Oil Museum is a great place to understand offshore and petroleum engineering.
After leaving Stavanger, the more interesting part of the journey came for me since I have been invited to present my second OnePetro registered publication on the SPE One Day Seminar in Bergen. As I mentioned in the second block, I have been working on this paper for a quite a lot of time, here is the story why and how: we had Offshore Technology lecture last year, and in the last section of it we had a lecture with John Turley who walked us through how the Macondo blowout has occurred. It was an amazing presentation. Then, before the lunch break during Q&A, I asked that what happened after the blowout has started: “how did they solve it? Are we going to cover it too?”
He replied something like this:
No, we are not going to talk about it since there are a load of sources available about it and focus should go on prevention, to prevent events in the future by learning and identifying the reasons of failure.
So, I walked into this after I got back home. I went looking at OnePetro but could not find anything, anything at all. I was particularly interested in how and what the industry learned. I could not accept that we should focus on “only” prevention since I believe the biggest tragedy of Macondo is that it still affects the everyday life of nature and millions of humans by the contaminated areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Then, I kept looking and the capping stacks came into the picture and then after a couple of weeks I found not much, but a bit of sources on how the problem was solved, what technologies, what culture represented the approach and then more and more things came into the picture… I came to the conclusion that this field is highly under-researched and the actual technology (namely the capping stack as the centerpiece of response capabilities) nowadays may not be the ideal solution. Then, I came up with a technical concept, which I was then able to present in Aberdeen and recently in Stavanger, and I also carried out a research focusing on what and how the stop of the outflow has happened, and what are the possible ways forward.
So, the paper was born, and the first conference I found was in Bergen. Then, I submitted an abstract, and I got in! It was a great feeling and a great payback for the interest of mine.
During the Presentation
The EPoster presentation went well, attendees appreciated the work. The seminar has also held good other presentations on i.e. heavy kill muds and oil based mud kick recognition.
As a learning I can only encourage you to do what you love, where you think you have no limits, where you are unstoppable. Just do it, and it will turn out to be good, if you really like what you do. Do not afraid of failures, have courage to write, this paper has its very own failures too, but hopefully I will have a chance to make it better, or continue on this field. Regarding a specific conference paper. Work on those nasty sentences, make your thoughts the world and SPE is interested in your view. When you have something meaningful it is easier to share than you think.
The paper is available here to download (download it from school, it is free there) from OnePetro.org: Subsea Blowout Source Control Technologies Utilized at the Macondo Accident and Developments in the Post-Macondo Era Document ID: SPE-180018-MS
Written by David Thomas Kutas, BSc; Philip Bailey, MSc and Michael Prohaska, PhD.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/180018-MS
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.
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.
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
Follow our website to get more information about the upcoming SPE provided possibilites.
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.
