IFP School, world champion of the 2020 Imperial Barrel Award

Five IFP School students won the Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) international competition held on 5 and 6 June.

Open to geoscience students from around the world, this annual competition was launched in 2007 by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG).

Due to the current health situation, the final competition, traditionally held in Houston, was organized virtually.

Lauréats Imperial Barrel Award 2020
Carolina Castaño Uribe, Claire Demangeot, Manuella Mafia, Monica Stancu and Julien Terrier brilliantly presented their analysis on the exploitation of an oil basin in the Gulf of Mexico to a jury of professionals from the energy sector on 5 and 6 June.

The team composed of Carolina Castaño Uribe (Colombia), Claire Demangeot (France), Manuella Mafia (Brazil), Monica Stancu (Romania) and Julien Terrier (France), all students enrolled on the Petroleum Geosciences program, competed against 11 prestigious universities.

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and the University of Calgary came in second and third respectively.

In total, more than 120 universities from all over the world took part in the competition.

For two months and during lockdown, the IFP School team studied the potential and feasibility of developing an oil basin in the Gulf of Mexico using a series of data provided by industry.

"It was a very rewarding experience in terms of both the technical aspects and the human aspects", says team member Carolina Castaño Uribe.

"It was quite an adventure between Covid-19, the lockdown and the oil crisis... we have been through ups and downs, but we made it to the top!”, adds Julien Terrier with pride.

During the final competition, the team gave a 25-minute presentation in English before a jury of oil industry professionals, composed of representatives from Schlumberger, Chevron, Oxy, Saudi Aramco and Shell.

This is the second time that the School has won the Imperial Barrel Award international competition, following its first success in 2010 in New Orleans.

The winners were supported by Eric Deville, a teacher at IFP School, and Jean-Pierre Roy, former director of the Georesources and Energy Center.

IFP School congratulates its 5 students.

Author of the article: Meyling Siu