News from the Australian School of Petroleum

Nat Arian Wins PESA prize

PhD student Natt Arian received the PESA Best Paper prize which is for "Best petroleum geoscience paper accepted for publication in 2007 by any full or part-time student enrolled in a S.A. tertiary institution in 2007". The prize is $1,000. His paper, Porosity Trends and Reservoir Quality in the Bass Basin, is published in APPEA Journal 2008.

New Industry Consortium Up and Running

The WAVE Consortium is a seven company, industry sponsored consortium with a research budget of approximately $800K over 2 years. The aim of the consortium is to analyse the impact of reservoir heterogeneities in wave-influenced coastal systems. Principal investigators are Associate Professor Bruce Ainsworth and Dr Boyan Vakarelov (ASP) and Associate Professor Simon Pattison (Brandon University, Canada). The Consortium are currently seeking PhD and MSc students and a Post-doc to work on the project which begins in April 2008. Please contact Bruce or Boyan for further details.

Two ASP Post Graduates Receive 2007 PESA Federal Scholarship

Kerrie Deller, from Australian School of Petroleum, was awarded the 2007 PESA Federal Scholarship. The award is for a postgraduate student at an Australian Tertiary Education undertaking a research project with relevance to Petroleum Geology or Geophysics that is made payable to the student to assist with their studies. Kerrie was unanimously awarded the scholarship, of $5000, by The PESA Education Co-ordinator and review panel.

In addition, Marianne Sandstrom, also from Australian School of Petroleum, received one of three additional scholarships (Highly Commended) of $2000 each. These were awarded to equal second placed candidates, due to the close nature of the final scores. Both awards were presented at the PESA Luncheon on Thursday 15th November, by Tony Hill, from PIRSA.

2007 PESA Graduate Prize Awarded To ASP Honours Student

Jonothan Hyde was awarded the 2007 PESA Graduate Prize for High Academic Achievement in Petroleum Geoscience. Jonothan's Honours thesis, titled "Building 3D Reservoir Models to Analyse the Impact of Key Uncertainties on Volumetric Estimations", earned him the $2000 the award, which was presented at the PESA meeting on 15th November.

2007 PESA Graduate Prize Awarded To ASP Honours Student

Jonothan Hyde was awarded the 2007 PESA Graduate Prize for High Academic Achievement in Petroleum Geoscience. Jonothan's Honours thesis, titled "Building 3D Reservoir Models to Analyse the Impact of Key Uncertainties on Volumetric Estimations", earned him the $2000 the award, which was presented at the PESA meeting on 15th November.

Peter Clarke Receives SPE Award

Peter Clarke will receive an award of $500 from SPE, for the "Best Presentation" at the recent Petroleum Engineering Honours students presentations, part of their final year program. Peter's high score was awarded by a panel of judges from Santos, Beach Petroleum and ASP together with a component of peer evaluation. The award will be presented at the SPE meeting on 11th December where Peter will do his presentation with fellow Honours student Jonothan Hyde.

Inaugural JF Kennedy Memorial Petroleum Engineering Entrepreneurial Scholarship

Adam Row and Robert Leedham, Petroleum Engineering Honours students, were joint recipients of the inaugural JF Kennedy Memorial Petroleum Engineering Entrepreneurial Scholarship. The scholarship of $20,000 and field work with ExtremeMachining, is awarded to students who demonstrate entrepreneurship, community involvement, innovation and academic merit. The award is to assist with educational and living costs.

ASP Awarded two Australian Research Council Grants

The ASP has been awarded two ARC (Australian Research Council) Discovery grants in the recently announced round.

$413K has been awarded to Prof. Hillis to study the Cenozoic deformation of the southern margin of Australia and its implications for oil exploration. These funds will support the research of Dr. Simon Holford from 2008-2011.

$422K has been awarded, also to Prof. Hillis, to analyse the present-day stress and tectonics of oil-rich delta and deepwater foldbelt provinces worldwide (including Brunei, Caspian, Niger and Mississippi). These funds will support the ongoing research of Dr. Ros King from 2008-2010.

New Petroleum Engineering Staff to Join ASP

The ASP is excited to announce the appointment of three new petroleum engineering staff, Dr Pavel Bedrikovetsky, Dr Moh'd Amro and Dr Motiur Rahman. All will arrive in January/February 2008 in time to contribute to the Semester 1 engineering program. With 30 teaching and research staff in petroleum engineering and petroleum geoscience, it will make the ASP the largest dedicated School of Petroleum in the South East Asia/Australasia region.

Head of School Appointed

The Australian School of Petroleum is excited to announce the appointment of Professor Richard Hillis as the new Head of School. Professor Hillis, the State of SA Chair of Petroleum Geology, commenced the three year appointment on 1 July 2007.

Marie Neubauer was awarded the 2007 PESA Postgraduate Scholarship

Marie Neubauer was awarded the 2007 PESA Postgraduate Scholarship at the recent monthly meeting. This was for her paper "Contemporary stress field of the offshore Carnarvon Basin - North West Shelf, Western Australia," presented in Vancouver in May at the US/Canada Rock Mechanics Conference.

SPE Scholarships Awarded

Three students were recently awarded a 2007 SPE scholarship valued at $3,000 each, and presentations were made at the SPE Luncheon meeting.

• Arien Centa, 3rd year combined Petroleum/Mechanical Engineering
• Ching Wan Lim, 3rd year Petroleum Engineering
• Chris Trzeciak, 3rd year Petroleum Engineering

Chris Trzeciak has also received a WA SPE Scholarship, valued at $2,500. Chris is about to head off to Norway to study for six months, those cheques will come in handy!

Student Prizes for 2006

There are a number of student prizes that are awarded at the ASP Graduation Dinner, held at Ayers House. They include a year level prize for the engineering undergraduate program, as well as prizes for particular categories, some of which are listed below. The Santos prize for the top overall engineering Honours student, Bich Thuy Ngo Hoang was presented by Ian Pedler.

The Origin Energy Ted Moorcroft Prize for the top geoscience Honours student. In 2006 this was presented to Alison Hickson, the presentation by Andy Mitchell.

Andy also made the presentation of the 2006 AusIMM/Santos prize for the top research thesis to Brendan Frears.

An inaugural award in 2006 was the Peter Behrenbruch International Award which was for the top international engineering Honours student and was awarded to Bich Thuy Ngo Hoang. Bich Thuy is still in Adelaide, working for Santos.

Saju Runner-Up in Poster Competition

Saju Menacherry was the runner up in the Student Poster Presentations at the 2006 AAPG International Conference in Perth. The conference had over 2600 delegates Saju's poster was Multiple Provenances: The Role of the Hinterland Sediment Composition on Predicting Reservoir Quality - an Example from the Western Lake Eyre Basin, Central Australia.

Saju Menacherry, University of Adelaide, Tobias H.D. Payenberg, University of Adelaide, Simon C. Lang, University of Adelaide