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Top Teams Set for IBA

Final Competition Held in Denver

By MIKE MLYNEK
AAPG Student Focus

The finalists are set for this year’s Imperial Barrel Awards competition, and 10 student teams from around the world are getting ready for the IBA finals.

This year’s IBA will be held June 5 in Denver – one day before the official start of this year’s AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition.

AAPG’s IBA Program is an annual prospect/exploration evaluation competition between university student teams who use real data, with the top team winning $20,000 for their petroleum geoscience departments.

The finalists were all determined by local and regional competitions, which this year attracted 88 teams from around the world.

The thus-far spirited competition already has produced several surprises. It’s already known, for example, that this year’s winner will be a first-time champion;

The schools who will compete in Denver are:

• Eastern Section – University of South Carolina.
• Gulf Coast Section – Texas A&M University.
• Mid-Continent Section – University of Nebraska.
• Southwest Section – University of Texas-El Paso.
• Rocky Mountain Section – University of Colorado.
• Pacific Section – San Diego State University.
• Canadian Region – Memorial University.
• European Region – Moscow State University.
• African Region – Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria).
• Asia/Pacific Region – Khon Kaen University (Thailand).

The popular IBA program depends on corporate sponsorship to help meet its goals – and opportunities still exist for companies that want to be part of the program.

In fact, only sponsoring companies are able to view these top teams from across the globe as they compete in the competition.

For more information regarding Region and Section competitions or on IBA sponsorship opportunities go to the IBA Web site; or contact Mike Mlynek or IBA Sponsorship chair Erik Mason .