Being the participants of IBA 2018 competition provided us with some of our best moments in our lives. It started with grouping a team at Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, that consisted of graduate students who barely knew each other at first and who were relatively inexperienced with petroleum exploration trainings, we came out as the winning regional team of the IBA2018 competition, to represent Asia Pacific Region.

At first, as the captain of the team, gathering five graduate students from different backgrounds was an exciting challenge. In the end, the team consisted of three geology and two geophysics students. I had not met most of the team members before; each of us came from different cultures and backgrounds with differences in personality.

The first two months were very memorable. In addition to building a new team, we also had to interpret, analyze, and process the dataset that had been given to us. We spent days and nights together, we had small talks and intense debates, and we felt the same pressure when we were getting closer to the deadline. These experiences made us a solid team in the end.

The dataset provided intensive exercise for us. In a limited amount of time, we tried to learn about the geology of the dataset location, process and interpret seismic and well data as hard as we could, integrate the geophysics and geology data, analyze risks and prospects, give every possible conventional and unconventional play options, set our goals, and so on, to be presented on the semi-final day.

Our dream continued as the winner of the Asia Pacific Region was announced. It was an honor to be the best among top universities such as Curtin University and Chulalongkorn University. We were also pleased to be the representative of Asia Pacific Region in The Final at Salt Lake City, Utah.

The trip to The Final was an insane experience for us. It was the first time for five of us to spend our day in an airplane for almost 24 hours. However, having great meals, drinks, and services from the airline and being stuck in US immigration for hours were another worth life story to have.

All in all, The IBA 2018 Competition was surely an exciting and priceless experience for us. Although we did not win in Utah, we gave our best for the competition. Being part of twelve universities from many sections and regions around the world was already an important jump-start to our career in the industry of petroleum geoscience. We are confident that we have learned many new skills and abilities. I highly recommend Masters students to take the chance to become part of the Imperial Barrel Award competition. Committing to spend months in preparing The Worldwide AAPG IBA Competition would be an extremely valuable experience.

We would also like to thank our Advisors, AAPG, AAPG Asia Pacific Region, and Institut Teknologi Bandung for the support towards our team right up to the final competition day. Institut Teknologi Bandung hope to be part of the event for the future years.