A team of UL Lafayette geology students was recently featured in the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' “Explorer” magazine. In April, the students proved themselves the best in the world at determining where to drill for oil in the 2014 Imperial Barrel Award Competition, which was held in Houston.
"Explorer" notes that UL Lafayette is the only university that has won the competition twice. It took the top honor in 2012, also.
This year's team, composed of five students pursuing master’s degrees in geology — Jordy Babineaux, Sam Ely, Nicholas Geyer, Jolie Helm and Daniel Sutton — received a $20,000 prize.
The AAPG sponsors the annual contest. UL Lafayette has participated every year since the competition began in 2008.
The organization featured the team's accomplishment in its monthly tabloid magazine, which is distributed in print and online to about 30,000 industry professionals.
Dr. David Borrok, director of UL Lafayette’s School of Geosciences, said winning the international competition "is like winning a gold medal in the Olympics. It means you are the best at what you do.
"The article does a great job of conveying the importance of this achievement and getting the word out to the petroleum geology community.”