ER News
First AAPG Student Chapter in Portugal!
Joana Ribeiro Vice-President of the Student Chapter
History
Figure 1. Portuguese AAPG members evolution from 2006 Until 2006 the AAPG had only 7 members in Portugal. At the end of 2006, Hugo Matias was elected for the House of Delegates in representation of the European Region. After his election he started a series of contacts with the Universities and Research Centers as well as the oil industry in Portugal. As a result, the number of AAPG members has risen to a total of 33 at the end of May 2008 (figure 1). This represents an increase of more than 400% in 2 years.
Figure 2. Executive Committee of the Student-chapter (left to right): Nuno (Treasurer), Joao Plancha (President), Joana Ribeiro (Vice President)In mid-2007 several students from the University of Lisbon were contacted to start the AAPG Student Chapter in Portugal. In June 2007 the AAPG Student Chapter – FCUL (SC-FCUL) was formerly accepted by AAPG with an initial 9 members. The President was João Plancha and the Faculty Advisor was Prof. Fernando Santos. The SC-FCUL was formerly supported by the Geophysical Research Center of the University of Lisbon which not only hosts the SC-FCUL webpage, but also support on the logistic.
In May 2008, the Student Chapter made the official presentation to the University in a session that counted with the presence of students, teachers and members from the oil industry (figure 2 and figure 3).
Figure 3. Official SC-FCUL Presentation to Students, Teachers and Portuguese Oil & Gas CompaniesFollowing this presentation, Prof. Nuno Pimentel has shown interest in helping the SC-FCUL in the preparation of its activities as well as being a Faculty Advisor.
The SC-FCUL will now have the combined support of the Geophysical Research Center and the Geology Center of the University of Lisbon.
Portugal does not have a tradition in petroleum geology/geophysics; this is about to change and is one of the main goals of the SC-FCUL.
We have all heard about the “divorce” between geophysics and geologists, this is another thing that SC-FCUL intends to change. And it’s going to start right now with the new executive committee constituted by geophysicists and geologists.
Figure 4. Student Chapter members by field of study (top) and degree (bottom) Membership
After the presentation, the number of SC-FCUL membership has grown and we hope that it continues to grow as SC-FCUL divulges new activities.
Activities
SC-FCUL has two types of training in mind; one more general (short courses, lectures and SC-FCUL library) and the other more specific for the IBA team.
What is the current situation on oil and gas in Portugal and in the world? What is the future of the industry? This are some subjects to approach in an “Oil and Gas Workshop” organized by the SC-FCUL.
In the school year 2007/2009, SC-FCUL will try to participate on the AAPG Imperial Barrel Award 2009 trough the constitution of a multidisciplinary team with the top graduated students. The students will be selected primarily from Geophysics and Geology courses, although it is open to other courses that could be found relevant.