AAPG Imperial Barrel Award Program (IBA)

AAPG’s 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.

In this global competition, university teams analyze a dataset (geology, geophysics, land, production infrastructure, and other relevant materials) in the eight weeks prior to their local competition. Each team delivers their results in a 25 minute presentation to a panel of industry experts. Students have the chance to use state of the art technology on a real dataset, receive feedback from an industry panel and impress potential employers in the audience. The IBA regional and section competition winners qualify to compete against each other in the international finals during the Annual Convention & Exhibition (ACE), taking place in the USA, for a chance to win scholarship funds for their school.

Check the video of our past regional competition by this link.

Visit IBA website to learn more.

Sultan Qaboos University, the winning team of the 7^th Imperial Barrel Award Competition, Middle East (Bahrain, March 2016)

King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals awarded with the third place in the IBA Finals 2015 (Denver, Colorado, June 2015)

King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals, the winning team of the 6^th Imperial Barrel Award Competition, Middle East (Muscat, Oman, March 2015)