Krakow

PetroBowl Qualifier at East Meets West

About a week ago, the “East meets West” conference took place for the 8^th time. It was organized by AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Drilling, Oil and Gas as well as the AGH UST Student Chapter and was located in Krakow in Poland. The good reputation of the AGH University and the success of the EMW conference in previous years was already promising a great event.

Dozens of students from all over the world came to see and attend interesting and inspiring paper and poster presentations from different fields of study as well as different study levels. Entertaining Panel discussions about HSE aspects and women in O&G industry were held together with industry’s professionals. Several companies such as MOL Group, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes took their chance and came to present their companies and fields of business in an exciting career session. And last but not least there was this one quiz about petroleum industry – the regional PetroBowl Qualifier for Europe, North Sea, Russia and Caspian SPE Sections.

Markus Hofmeister, Alexis Koulidis, Robert Nitsche, Michael Nirtl, and Mathias Bayerl (left to right) proudly represented MUL at the PetroBowl Regional Qualifier at the EMW Congress in Krakow

The arrival and welcome at the accommodation was well organized and the conference kicked off with a meet-and-greet session or simple said a pub-crawl in the city center of Krakow. On Tuesday, the first official day of the event more and more students arrived and the conference was opened by Mr. Stanislaw Nagy, representative of AGH university and Mr. Mathias Meister, SPE representative and regional director.

Later on, the first student paper contest for undergraduates started and several students presented their research work about various topics of technical and economic nature. As part of the contest, our colleague from SPE Student Chapter Oliver Spenger held a great presentation on Big Data in which he explained why less data is sometimes more. For his excellent performance, he was awarded with the second place. Congratulations Oliver!

On Wednesday morning, the preliminaries of the PetroBowl Qualifier were scheduled. Twenty teams had to compete against each other in head-to-head quiz rounds in order to reach the best 16. Six teams were already set for the next round due to good performance in the previous year. The team from Montanuniversität Leoben participated for the first time ever in the PetroBowl tournament and had to start off against Aberdeen University in their preliminary round. Ignoring mathematics here, every team was 150% motivated and the atmosphere was overwhelming. With a sound performance, our team won and went to the next round where University of Miskolc waited for them. After another win in the afternoon session, Leoben proceeded to the quarterfinals and finished its PetroBowl business for that day.

A room full of tension during the match between Montanuniversitaet Leoben and the team from Politecnico di Torino

After a more or less short night out – priorities first – Leoben competed against Politecnico di Torino on Thursday afternoon. It was a thrilling match but in the end we won and qualified for the PetroBowl finals in San Antonio Texas. From there, all the pressure was gone and we had won dozens of fans already. In the semifinals, the last four teams competed against each other: Heriot Watt vs. AGH University & MU Leoben vs. Gubkin University. Additionally to those four teams, our friends from Stavanger University have qualified as well for the PetroBowl finals due to the Lucky Loser regulation. Congratulations!

With a solid performance, our colleagues managed to win against Gubkin University and made it to the final! In the other semifinal, AGH University defeated Heriot Watt University so that the final was made up of the host AGH University and our team from Leoben. The atmosphere was loaded

2017 SPE PetroBowl Team

Let’s kick off something new in our chapter’s history!

Are you passionate about your studies and eager to proof that in a competitive setting? The terms “fish”, “pig”, or “horse head” don’t trigger associations with animals in the first place and you are willing to support a team with your specialized knowledge while also learning from the experience of your team mates? Are you simply keen to try something new? Then the PetroBowl competition 2017 might be something you don’t want to miss.

The PetroBowl competition pitches SPE student chapter teams against each other in a series of quick-fire rounds, answering technical and nontechnical industry-related questions. The regional qualifier of this international competition will take place during the “East meets West” student conference in Krakow on 5-7 April 2017. Achieving one of the first places in Krakow would automatically result in the qualification for the PetroBowl finals at the Annual Technical Conference in 2017 in San Antonio, Texas.

Unfortunately, cost cuttings due to a long-lasting low oil price have also affected this event. SPE International will not provide financial sponsorship for participation at a regional competition, nor for the Championship. Although this means that we will be responsible for all costs associated with traveling to the Championship, we are convinced that this is going to be a great and thrilling experience.

If all of this sounds like real fun to you, then please shoot us an email to chapter@speleoben.com with a brief introduction of yourself, your current semester, your specialization and why you think you are the perfect team mate for our PetroBowl 2017 team until Tuesday, 06 December.

East Meets West – A Personal Success Story

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.

EMW – International Student Petroleum Congress & Career Expo

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.

On the way to Krakow — Click/Tap on Picture to Open Gallery

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.