15 August 2019
The Laurie Dake Challenge, previously known as the FIELD Challenge (a Fully Integrated EvaLuation
and Development), is a competitive challenge organized by the EAGE Student Fund (ESF)
since 2011. It brings together teams from around the world to compete
at the annual EAGE Conference and Exhibition.
The Laurie Dake Challenge 2020 will once again challenge students to work on a cross‐disciplinary geoscience and engineering
integration challenge within their universities. The competition has several rounds:
(1) an exploration round;
(2) an intermediate deliverable of the field development plan; and,
(3) the final presentation of the field development plan. All teams work with the same data set, this
year provided by Shell.
Are you keen to get involved, make sure to follow the EAGE Student Fund blogs and students
social media updates! A first tip to get ready: aim for a diverse team – history shows the
best results in the competition build on a variety of personal and scientific backgrounds.
Insights from last years’ winners
IFP School team – winners of the Laurie Dake Challenge 2019 – provide a good example. The
team defined themselves as both multi-cultural (with people from Venezuela, France,
Brazil and Argentina), as well as multi-disciplinary in gathering one geologist, one geophysicist,
two reservoir engineers and one petroleum engineer.
They have been through a workflow which aimed to build an integrated development plan, from the
geological study to the design of the subsea facilities, while assessing the
economics of the
project and taking into account potential additional prospects in the immediate surroundings.
It can be summarized as follows:
• Definition of a geological conceptual model.
• Building of the static reservoir model.
• Computing simulations through a dynamic model.
• Designing the subsurface facilities and the global development plan.
• Economic analysis to see the feasibility of the project.
The team defined the integration of seismic data as a constraint for the facies modelling of
the turbiditic complexes as one of the most challenging parts. A great amount of
time and effort was need to understand the geological model of the field, prior to building
the dynamic model. For them, another point was to make important assumptions derived
from analogs in order to address a certain lack of data.
This experience has allowed the IFP team to apply the skills acquired in their various training
programs at IFP School in concrete terms. It was a real challenge to reconcile this project
over 6 months in parallel with their studies, but the team worked in a good mood and with enthusiasm.
Having different backgrounds and fields of study helped them to support each other and overcome
the different steps of the challenge.
IFP team:
” It was interesting to assess our capacity to be flexible
and adapt to the challenge’s demands: each step carried its load of
expectations, goals and deliveries (report, videos, presentation).
A communication, regular meetings and team spirit were key
elements to carry out this project alongside our studies.”
Five other finalist teams were involved in the 2019 edition of the Laurie Dake Challenge:
University of Stavanger ( second place), Dalhousie University and Instituto Mexicano del
Petroleo ( Third Place), Institut Teknologi Bandung , Petroleum University of Technology. All of them
worked very hard and have delivered impressive presentations to the jury.
Since the same data set was given to all the participants, it was exciting to see how all the different teams
interpreted and used the information at their disposal.
Damarys Castillo, Serugue Abreu e Santiago, Gregory Charles Barrere, Diego Potenzoni and Floriane Mortier;
who are members of the the IFP Team, wish to thank the pedagogical team of IFP School for its
support and guidance, as well as the EAGE and EAGE Student Fund for this rich opportunity that
allowed us to learn a lot and meet with teams from all over the world.
Get started!
Exited to give the challenge a shot yourself? Time to start thinking about composing your team!
Applications for the Laurie Dake Challenge open on 13 October 2019. From this date, teams
can apply online at EAGE Students site.
Each university team should include a multi-disciplinary team of full-time geoscience and
petroleum engineering students, with a maximum of one PhD student per team.
