2011 GCAGS IBA Competition

2011 GCAGS Imperial Barrel Award Competition

The GCAGS region held its Imperial Barrel Award Competition (IBA) on Friday, March 25th at the Schlumberger SIS facility. Ten teams competed including:

Auburn University

Louisiana State University

Rice University

Stephen F. Austin University

Texas A&M University

University of Alabama

University of Houston

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

University of New Orleans

University of Texas at Austin

All ten university teams did an excellent job evaluating the data, presenting their interpretation and presenting their recommendations for developing their acreage. The GCAGS IBA was judged by the following industry professionals:
Michelle Abraham, Anadarko Petroleum
Chuck Caughey, Noble Energy
Robert Pledger, Ashford Oil & Gas Company
Bill Barkhouse, ABC-GEO, Inc

The judges did a very effective job critiquing the teams and providing insights regarding how the teams could improve their work in the future. Following the competition, the judges met with each team individually to provide feedback to them on their analysis and presentation. The following teams placed:

1st place: University of Texas, Austin ($3000)

2nd place: Louisiana State University ($2000)

3rd place: University of Louisiana, Lafayette ($1000)

The university departments will receive prize money as defined above. Each graduate student participant received a Dictionary of Petroleum Exploration, Drilling & Production and an AAPG GCAGS medal.

UT, Austin will move on to represent the GCAGS region in the competition at the AAPG National Convention in Houston. All expenses will be paid by sponsorship through AAPG at the global level.

Icebreaker

We held an icebreaker on Thursday evening, March 24th at the Schlumberger SIS Breakthrough Performance Center. There was excellent attendance from the industry, including sponsors, volunteers, students, GCAGS, HGS, and AAPG members. The students had a chance to interact with BP, Devon, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Noble Energy, Oxy, Plains, Schlumberger, Shell, and others.

Training

For the first time, training for the GCAGS IBA competition was held at the GCAGS Annual Conference in San Antonio in October 2010. Universities that had not previously entered a team into the IBA program were targeted but any university students were eligible to attend. The course was taught by SCA- Subsurface Consultants & Associates, LLC. Approximately 20 students participated in the training. A second training session was given by ExxonMobil and held at their Benmar facility in January 2011 just prior to the delivery of the datasets to the university teams. The purpose of this training was to set the foundation for all the participating university teams for the data evaluation.

Mentors

Each university had from one to several mentors who coached them, answered questions and helped review their presentation prior to the competition. These mentors were judges in previous years, geoscientists interested in helping the students and often alumni of the university they mentored.

The mentors this year included:

Auburn University – Herb Martin, Devon; Sean Bingham, Devon; Bob Witherspoon, Devon
Louisiana State University – Erik Scott, Marathon Oil
Rice University – Thorbjorn Pedersen, Oxy Permian; Jorge Faz, Oxy Permian
Stephen F Austin University – Tom Bulling, BP; Jim Ferry, Anadarko Petroleum
Texas A&M – David Barnett, Anadarko Petroleum
University of Alabama – Ted Godo, Shell
University of Houston – Mark Richardson, ExxonMobil; Mike Liebelt, Marathon Oil
University of Louisiana, Lafayette- Mary Broussard, Plains Exploration
University of New Orleans – Toby Roesler, Stone Energy; Denise Knight, Anadarko Petroleum
University of Texas, Austin – Dave Nollsch, Apache; Rusty Goetz, Marathon Oil

This is an important function of the competition and all the industry support was greatly appreciated. We hope to expand the numbers of mentors in 2012.

2011 IBA Budget

The IBA committee raised adequate funding in 2011 to more than cover costs. The additional sponsorship will allow us to cover initial costs in 2012 prior to the new sponsorship year.

The costs for this year’s event for 10 university teams are listed below. These costs reflect a two day event. The first day the students had the opportunity to practice in the facility followed by an icebreaker that evening. The competition started the next day with a social networking breakfast at 7:15 am and ended at about 8:30 pm following feedback to the teams after the awards ceremony. The program involved 2 nights of hotel stays for most teams.

2011 IBA Costs:

Expenditures

2010 Actual

2011 Actual

Hotel rooms & parking

$3,663

$6,780

Competition Breakfast

$401

$300

Competition Lunch

$747

$818

Competition Dinner (pizza)

$627

Icebreaker catering– GCAGS sponsored ($5000)

$5,159

$6,780

Travel expenses or gas, including in 2011 Air travel for UA & AU

$1,100

$5,743

Awards & Trophies

$1,775

$2,000

Prize money

$6,000

$6,000

Dictionaries $90/student

$2,650

$5,319

AAPG student medals

$773

$892

Supplies for name tags and thank you notes

$38

$100

Committee Travel Expenses

$258

$0

IBA training @ XOM

$150

$2,522

GCAGS convention training costs

$350

Thank you’s/tips

$270

Total

$22,714

$38,501

2011 GCAGS IBA Sponsorship:

2011 GCAGS IBA Sponsorship

Company

Confirmed Sponsorship

2009 carry over

$8,300

Anadarko

$2,000

Badger Oil

$500

Diversified Mudlogging

$500

ExxonMobil

$5,000

GCAGS

$5,000

HGS

$10,000

Marathon

$5,000

McMoran

$1,000

Noble

$2,000

PetroQuest

$500

Plains

$5,000

Stone Energy

$500

Stratigraph, Inc

$500

SCA- Subsurface Consultants & Associates

In Kind ($10k)

Schlumberger

In Kind ($15k)

Total Sponsorship

$45,800

2009-2011 GCAGS IBA Committee:

Janice Gregory-Sloan, Houston
Mary Broussard, Lafayette
Arthur Johnson, New Orleans

The committee was delighted that we were successful in growing the program from 6 to 10 teams in 2011. We enjoyed the opportunity to support the geosciences students in their career development.

Best regards from the GCAGS IBA Committee,

Janice Gregory-Sloan
Mary Broussard
Arthur Johnson

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