UH Competes in 2015 Gulf Coast Section of the AAPG Imperial Barrel Award Competition


UH Competes in 2015 Gulf Coast Section of the AAPG Imperial Barrel Award Competition
Team Presented an Evaluation of the Cooper Basin, South Australia

The American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ (AAPG) Imperial Barrel Award Program (IBA) is an annual prospective basin evaluation competition for geoscience graduate students from universities around the world. University teams compete to win scholarship funds for their geoscience department and the international recognition that comes from competing or winning in the competition.
The program is rigorous and contributes to AAPG's mission of promoting petroleum geoscience training and advancing the careers of geoscience students.

AAPG Imperial Barrel Award CompetitionThis year, the UH Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) team was composed of (from left): Lily Schaffer (captain), Atif Hariz, Charles Hooper, Naila Dowla and Lourdes Rodriguez. Faculty advisors were Drs. John Castagna and Paul Mann, and the team's industry advisors included Dr. Mark Richardson (ExxonMobil) and Mike Liebelt (independent).

On April 17, the team competed against 10 other teams from universities in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The presentation area of the UH EAS team was the Cooper basin of South Australia.

The winners of the competition included:
First Place: University of New Orleans (study area: North Slope of Alaska)
Second Place: University of Louisiana (study area: Barents Sea)
Third Place (tie): University of Texas at Austin (study area: Cooper basin, Australia)
Third Place (tie): Stephen F. Austin State University (study area: Dutch North Sea)

The University of New Orleans will advance to the IBA world competition where they will compete with winners from other regions of the world. The event will take place at the AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in Denver in late May.