The UWI Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Student Chapter has been selected by Society of Petroleum Engineers International (SPEI) to receive the Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter 2020. This prestigious award is the organisation’s highest honor, recognising only the top 5 per cent of SPEI student chapters around the world, and this is UWI SPE’s first time winning the award.
“The Presidential Award is given to student chapters with exceptional programmes in industry engagement, operations and planning, community involvement, professional development, and innovation. All 2020 Outstanding Student Chapter recipients will be recognised in October 2020 at SPEI’s Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in Houston, Texas, USA.
This recognition is one of several given to the student chapter based at UWI St Augustine. In 2019, they won the SPEI Student Chapter Excellence Award, the second highest honour a student chapter may receive. In July 2020, The UWI SPE Student Chapter PetroBowl Team placed 3rd in the SPE Latin America and Caribbean Regional PetroBowl Competition and qualified to take part in the SPE International PetroBowl competition to be held in Houston in October. Eighteen universities from nine countries in Latin America and Caribbean took part in this competition. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the PetroBowl competition was held virtually for the first time.
The UWI SPE Student Chapter is made up of students with a focus or interest in petroleum engineering. The chapter’s faculty advisor is Professor Raffie Hosein, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Petroleum Engineering.
Established in the early 1900s, the Society of Petroleum Engineers today is an independent, nonprofit global organisation with more than 153,000 members in 143 countries. They manage key petroleum industry resources such as OnePetro and PetroWiki, in addition to publishing magazines, books and peer-reviewed journals. SPE hosts more than 100 conferences, workshops, and other events each year around the world.
