East Meets West Congress & PetroBowl 2019 - GREATEST success EVER!!!

Hello everybody!

On Friday 12.04.19 we have wrapped up FANTASTIC four days in the 10th “East Meets West” congress held in Krakow, Poland. SPE Leeds student chapter team took part in the PETROBOWL competition and finished in top 4 out of 18 participating teams. We were able to secure wins against our rivals in UK, beating University of Manchester in the 1/8 finals and Robert Gordon University in the 1/4 finals. Unfortunately, we had to acknowledge the immense dominance of the host team SPE AGH Student chapter, the overall winner of the Petrobowl East Section, and in a close battle the superiority of IFP School from France. Nevertheless, these losses were only quantitative meaning that the gained knowledge from industry distinguished experts such as Mr. Darcy Spady, Mr. Jean-Mars Dumas, Mr. Kuba Neneman and Mr. Riverson Oppong, Ph.D and the established connections all over the globe outweigh the bitter feeling of not being able to go to Calgary this September to test our strengths outside the borders of Europe. Nevertheless, we would like to take our time to say a BIG THANK YOU to the team members: Haydn Orme, Małgorzata Drwiła, Davis Bigestans and, of course, the team captain Charis Petrou.

Likewise, our Academic Advisor Djamel Benlekehal at the same time deserves an immense applause for his willingness to spend extra time each week before the competition and prepare us for the competition by explaining technical concepts, putting us under battle-like conditions and most importantly encouraging and making us believe that we can be more than we expect of ourselves.

On another note, the congress apart from the main event Petrobowl at the same time gave excellent opportunities to all the participants by organising Panel discussion “Impact of Digitalisation on Oil & Gas Industry” with highly eminent industry experts such as D. Spady and J.M. Dumas sharing their views on this exciting yet sometimes not clearly understood concept, SPE Student Paper competition for Undergraduate, Masters and PhD sections and, undoubtedly, exciting and refreshing social events such as the Gala Dinner, East Meets West Integration, etc.

We want to take our time to express our gratitude to the organisers of this event AGH UST SPE Student Chapter, Patryk Bijak and his assembled organising committee, and of course to the beloved invited guests Darcy Spady, Jean-Mars Dumas and others. Of course, many thanks to the main sponsors of this event: Golden Partners —Shell, PGNiG; Silver Partners — LOTUS and AGH; Bronze Partners — EuRoPol GAZ S.A and many more. Similarly, we want to note the importance of the School of Chemical and Process Engineering (University of Leeds) in this whole process as they were willing to support us and make our attendance feasible.

Of course, to everybody who participated in the 10th “East Meets West” we want to say THANK YOU for making this a truly special event for the our chapter, and we hope to take part next April having this time good amount of experience under our belts and enthusiasm to advance further.

Wishing You Peaceful and Joyful Easter,

SPE Leeds Student Chapter