Curtin Malaysia’s Team Carbon.
“TEAM Carbon” comprising five petroleum engineering students from Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia), won a bronze medal in the recent PetroCup World Student Olympics 2022, having placed third in the South Asia Region.
Team Carbon comprised team leader Mahibul Islam Bappy, Eslam Samer Soliman Mohamed Talaia, Eugene Jian Jun Chai, Danesh Anandan Naidu and Abdurrazzaq Amani Azli under the guidance of lecturers Dr Mahmood Bataee and Dr Ziad Bennour from Curtin Malaysia’s Department of Chemical and Energy Engineering.
The PetroCup World Student Olympics, organised annually by Nafta College in Russia, is a one-of-a-kind online competition designed to simulate real-life activities that take place in an oilfield.
It is run on Polyplan – an interactive training and testing programme that tests teams on different upstream activities.
Polyplan creates a digital twin of synthetic petroleum assets so that the teams can see the production analysis over many years of virtual field exploration and development.
The competition consisted of five trials within a limited time frame. Following each trial, the teams’ scores were tallied.
Universities including Curtin Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, PetroVietnam University, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), University of Petroleum and Energy Studies India, and Chulalongkorn University Thailand participated this year.
Describing the competition as extremely challenging, Team Carbon worked together relentlessly on tackling the problems posed, discussing various options and novel approaches to issues.
This instilled a strong sense of confidence and teamwork, they said.
They also credited their success to the support and motivation of event host Vladimir Krichevsky and their team mentor, Alfiya Mustafina.
Assoc Prof Ir Stephanie Chan Yen San, Chemical and Energy Engineering Department head, said she was delighted to see the achievements of the students in the PetroCup.
“Being able to simulate real petroleum industry conditions and tackle real-world problems in the competition demonstrates the capabilities of our students and their readiness for work in the industry,” she said.
Meanwhile, Faculty of Engineering and Science dean Prof Tuong-Thuy Vu, in conveying his congratulations to the students, said it was heartening to see Curtin Malaysia’s engineering and science students continuing to excel in national and international competitions, citing the PetroCup as one of the engineering world’s most anticipated and hotly-contested competitions.
Prof Vu also commended Dr Mahmood and Dr Ziad for being excellent advisors, saying that the team’s outstanding performance was largely due to their guidance and motivation.
Curtin Malaysia offers Curtin’s four-year Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering, which involves chemical engineering, drilling, fluid flow through reservoirs, formation evaluation, geology, hydrocarbon phase behaviour, oil and gas field development, petroleum production technology, thermodynamics and well completions engineering.
Curtin is ranked No.43 for petroleum engineering in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022.
n Information on Curtin Malaysia can be found on its website at www.curtin.edu.my, or look for Curtin Malaysia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or TikTok.
