Five students from the Universidad Industrial de Santander won third place in the Imperial Barrel Award competition of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). France was the champion and the United States was the runner-up.
In this competition they reached the final phase after being the champions of the Latin American and Caribbean region, thus earning the right to participate in the decisive stage against their peers from universities in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Jesús David Díez Becerra, Margarita Sierra Peña, Catherin Julieth Rico, Juan Sebastián Ávila Parra and Tatiana Milena Muñoz were the students who made up the UIS team.
“As a team we got along very well, each one of us took care of what we had to do when it was time to work, so it was a very good complement. Personally it was an enriching experience, one meets many people and there is interaction to strengthen ties with industry professionals,” said Diez Becerra, who is in his ninth semester of Geology and was the captain of the UIS team.
The team was advised and led by Professor Julián David De Bedout Ordóñez, who together with his colleagues Andrés de la Hoz and Lucía Torrado prepared and accompanied the young people during all the phases of the Imperial Barrel Award.
“The idea was to calculate how much oil reserves an area has, to say how much is the potential, to analyze the geology because there are different branches that are integrated. It is a contest that was created in the United States, a competition for graduate students, here at UIS we almost always go with young undergraduates, we have put in the work to fight and go far, so it is a great satisfaction to be the champions of the region and third place in the world, “said Julian David De Bedout Ordonez.
Of the five participants, three are from the School of Geology undergraduate program and two from the Petroleum Engineering graduate program.
The Imperial Barrel Award is an annual competition for geoscience graduate students from universities around the world. University teams analyze a data set (geology, geophysics, soil, production infrastructure and other relevant materials) in the eight weeks prior to their local competition. Each set delivers its results in a 25-minute presentation to a panel of industry experts.
Finally, judges select the winning team based on the technical quality, clarity and originality of the presentation.
