Exploration Insights December 2019/ January 2020 | Page 26

26 | Halliburton Landmark
Exploration Insights | 27
STEPS Testimonial — Abdullah
Alkandari
I took part in a STEPS project that aimed to place
borderline discoveries on the United Kingdom
Continental Shelf into a regional context. The
project was exciting, but also challenging, starting
with my lack of experience in the geology of the
basins, and of the big data that I received.
However, the Halliburton-STEPS team provided
me with mentorship and training to help me
achieve the requirements. At the beginning of the
project, they introduced the data and suggested
ways in which I could progress and complete the
project. Every week, we had a conference call
to ensure that everything was going smoothly.
Understanding the data was key to the success
of my project, and both Lawrie Cowliff and my
academic advisor Dr. Rufus Brunt guided and
helped me to understand and to achieve the
results.
My STEPS project allowed me to gain many
new skills, including how to analyze big data
from different sources, and how to create an
interpretation that links the data. Personally, I
would advise anyone to take the opportunity and
try a project— there is much to learn, on both a
personal and professional level.
I would like to express my sincere appreciation
to all those who helped me in my STEPS project,
especially Lawrie Cowliff (Product Owner,
Petroleum System Analysis, Neftex ® Insights), Dr.
Rufus Brunt (University of Manchester academic
advisor), Dr. Xinli Jia (University Hub Lead,
Halliburton-Landmark), Emily Collett (Halliburton
Intellectual Property Liaison), and Marcus
Wiltshire.
SEG EVOLVE:
Empowering the New
Explorers of the Digital
Age
by: Elham Mohsenian
WHAT IS SEG EVOLVE?
The EVOLVE program allows experienced
advisers to mentor students in multidisciplinary
teams exploring around the world. This program
aims to empower the early career participants
to solve the types of realistic challenges that
they will encounter if they embark on careers in
exploration and production.
Individual students and university-based teams are
welcome to join this program, including Masters
students, Ph.D. students, and 3 rd and 4 th year
undergraduate students who have a sufficient level
of understanding of petroleum geology. Teams
typically consist of four to six individuals, and
must include a variety of disciplines — geologist,
geophysicist, petrophysicist, rock physicist, and a
reservoir engineer.
One of the most important and challenging
characteristics of EVOLVE projects is that they
consist of open-ended exercises that have no
prepared answers. The emphasis for students is
not on the right answers, but on using available
data to think carefully and ask the right questions.
This helps students to improve their technical
insight, understanding of modern workflows, and
skills in applying these workflows.
This type of training and practical experience is
essential if the industry is to meet the challenges
that lie ahead. These young professionals will be
well prepared for a successful career involving
complex subsurface, economic, and human
factors, and they will be ready to be fearless
explorers of the future.
EVOLVE is a strategic collaboration between
Halliburton and SEG, where Halliburton makes an
in-kind donation of the iEnergy ® cloud environment,
DecisionSpace ® software, and critical support
for both. The teams can also use locally-installed
instances of DecisionSpace software. EVOLVE is
free for student teams.
WHY PARTICIPATE IN EVOLVE?
EVOLVE offers students direct experience
in conducting multidisciplinary subsurface