About IBA

AAPG’s Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) is an annual subsurface basin-evaluation program for geoscience 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 in — or winning — the competition. The program is rigorous and contributes to AAPG’s mission of promoting petroleum geoscience training and advancing the careers of geoscience students.

 

In this global educational program, university teams analyze a dataset — geology, geophysics, land, production infrastructure and other relevant materials — in the ten weeks prior to their respective Region competition. Each team delivers their results in a 25-minute presentation to a panel of industry experts, judged on technical quality, clarity and originality.

 

Three disciplines to choose from:
01
Petroleum

Classic exploration play evaluation across a regional basin dataset.

02
Geothermal

Assess subsurface resources for sustainable heat and power generation.

03
Carbon Capture

Evaluate storage potential for carbon capture and sequestration.

Students have the chance to use state-of-the-art technology on a real dataset, receive feedback from an industry panel of judges, and win cash awards for their school. The IBA is a hands-on opportunity to experience the creative process and high-tech science that is the foundation of the energy industry today.

10
weeks of analysis
25
minute defense
3
disciplines

The Imperial Barrel Award was founded in 1976 by the Imperial College in the UK. The first “Barrel Award” was held as an MSc Petroleum Geoscience course in 1976, where students interpreted seismic from the North Sea using color pencils.

 

This program continued at Imperial College until 2007 when AAPG adopted the program concept. The AAPG program took the Imperial Barrel concept and expanded it to incorporate new technology, new datasets, and include students from every AAPG Region and Section. Almost every country in the world has been represented in the IBA.

 

The AAPG Imperial Barrel Award program provides a hands-on opportunity for students to experience the creative process and high-tech science that is the foundation of the energy industry today. University teams compete to win scholarship funds for their geoscience department, learn marketable skills, and gain international recognition for participation in the program.

 

Key learning elements

Drawn from the original concepts pioneered by Imperial College, IBA teams must demonstrate:

 

  • Evidence of rigorous and creative technical evaluations.
  • The ability to work to a strict deadline.
  • The ability to work effectively within a team.
  • The ability to make decisions based on incomplete or inadequate data.
  • The ability to give lucid oral presentations to a panel of senior industry experts.
  • There must be no more than five team members per team and no less than three team members per team. Special circumstances must be approved by the IBA Committee prior to the delivery of the datasets. Teams may not change team members between the Region and Global Final competitions.
  • No student is allowed to participate in the IBA program more than once. Previous IBA program experience would give that student’s team an edge during competition and would deprive an inexperienced student of having the chance to participate.
  • Teams should be composed of master’s-level students. No team can have more than two doctorate geoscience students on their team. No student should have more than three years of post-graduate experience.
  • Students must have full-time enrollment status in the school participating in the AAPG IBA program. Students should have no more than one year of cumulative professional petroleum exploration experience.
  • All students must present their own work or the work of their team members in their presentations. All students on the team must speak equally during the presentation. The de-facto language of the presentations in the Region, Section, and Global Final competition must be conducted in English. AAPG is not responsible for supplying or paying for an interpreter for any competition.

The Guidelines presented here are superseded by the current Rules and Operating Procedures (see below).

Rules and Operating Procedures PDF

Each team works a real, regional-scale dataset provided by the IBA committee — the heart of the competition experience.

 

  • Only schools that participate in at least the local competition may retain the datasets as teaching tools.
  • Datasets are regional in scale, with 2D/3D seismic and well data (e.g. petrophysical logs, cores, core analysis results, pressures, fluids, well tests).
  • Team members may do a literature search. They may acquire free data OUTSIDE the area of interest. No data may be acquired inside the area of interest.
  • The IBA committee will provide one dataset to each school per competition year. Data will be provided to the participating schools eight weeks before their local competition.
  • Schools which have datasets from other sources are encouraged to donate them to the IBA technical library. After evaluation and acceptance, the dataset will be included in the normal dataset rotation. However, a school will not be allowed to use its own dataset because it may derive a competitive advantage from prior analytic experience.

See Rules and Operating Procedures Section 5 Data Sets for further explanation (below).

Rules and Operating Procedures PDF
  • Complete a technical assessment of the sustainable resource potential of the basin/area.
  • Define the integrated system, wellbore, and analog analysis, leads/prospects, and risks.
  • Make recommendations on future exploration activity based on prevailing technical and economic conditions.

See Rules and Operating Procedures Section 6 Project Data Analysis for further explanation (below).

Rules and Operating Procedures PDF

Universities with enough qualified students and a willing faculty advisor apply to participate in the program. Universities teams then compete at the Region semifinal competitions and the top team from each Region will compete at the Global Final competition.

 

Logistics for the Global Final Competition

Region teams will take part in a virtual presentation before a panel of judges. Each team will be allowed 25 minutes for their presentation.

 

Awards

The following awards will be presented to the team finalists of the Global Final competition:

  • First: The Imperial Barrel Award (plus $10,000)
  • Second: The Selley Cup (plus $5,000)
  • Third: The Stoneley Medal (plus $3,000)
  • Honorable Mention: All remaining teams (plus $1,000)

 

Each school will be provided the following items:
  • IBA Welcome Letter from IBA Student Support Committee.
  • IBA Rules and Operating Procedures.
  • Scoring Guidelines.
  • IBA competition dataset and project instruction.
  • The opportunity to request software that has been made available by several sponsors for teams to use in making their analysis.
  • Materials specific to the local competition.