In March 2017, the College of Petroleum Engineering & Geosciences (CPG) at KFUPM participated at the Middle East Oil and Gas (MEOS) show & Conference, held in Bahrain in the first week of March with an objective to attract talents in all aspects. In this endeavor, CPG designed and fabricated a decent sized booth (see Illustration below). The booth portraited the complete integration of all three departments Geology, Geophysics and Petroleum Engineering and Center of Integrative Petroleum Research (CIPR) and emphasized the CPG aspiration of the college in visual montage and posters displays. CPG faculty also had scheduled presentations. Many faculty, staff and students took turns in the booth and the scheduled presentations were well attended by the conference and exhibition delegates. The highlight of the CPG presence is that it attracted alumni, future students, post-doctoral candidates and potential future faculty.
The PetroBowl is one of the most popular student activity organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineer (SPE) during Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition. “The PetroBowl competition pitches SPE student chapter teams against each other in a series of quick-fire rounds, answering technical and nontechnical oil and gas industry-related questions.” Regional qualifier competitions take place in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, South America & Caribbean, Middle East, and North America.
Winning team sharing trophy with Dr. Abdulaziz O. Al-Kaabi (Dean, College of Petroleum Engineering and Geoscience, KFUPM)
CPG students at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals participated in the Middle East regional qualifier competition held at 20th Middle East Oil & Gas Show and Conference, Manama, Bahrain. The competition was held on 8th March 2017 at Westin Bahrain City Center. There were total six teams from different institutes (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia; King Saud University (KSU), Saudi Arabia; Petroleum Institute (PI), Abu Dhabi; Texas A&M, Qatar; The American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt, The British University in Egypt and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur India) participated in 2017 PetroBowl regional Qualifier from Middle East and North Africa Region.The following Petroleum Engineering Department students represented CPG/KFUPM team:
· Rizwan Khan
· Abdul Asad
· Saleh Almier
· Hassan Alismail
· Abdulmalik Almatroodi –(Could not attend)
CPG/KFUPM team won the first place in the competition and qualified for the participation at international 2017 PetroBowl Championship which will take place during the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), in San Antonio, USA in October 2017.
Some Student Perspective: (By: Ahmed Elsaed)
It was an exciting experience to see undergraduate students compete against each other not only for winning the prize but also for their knowledge and experience. Six teams from around the Middle East region were representing their universities, they were all passionate to win. The competition was exciting and went smoothly through the first round three teams got eliminated. Moreover, the winners for the first round were Texas A&M Qatar, Petroleum Institute UAE, and our university KFUPM. To make the teams even, AUC Egypt was selected as best loser to go to top four. The following round was very interesting as results were very close, all teams did their best, but still two teams got to the final, those were Texas A&M and KFUPM.
We were impressed with our team’s performance. They were skilled students with good prior preparation and they were also well focused during the competition. With their hard effort, patience and talent, the CPG/KFUPM team topped the final game and secured the 1st place. We are glad and proud while our students reflected the KFUPM picture in that event.
Winning team sharing trophy with Darcy W. Spady (2018 SPE president)
Two winning teams 1st place (KFUPM) and 2nd place by Texas A&M, Qatar
Winning team sharing trophy with Dr. Rahul Gajbhiye (Faculty advisor SPE-KFUPM student chapter)