The 10th AAPG Middle East Region Imperial Barrel Award Competition (IBA) took place in Muscat, Oman on the 10th March 2019. This edition involved 9 teams representing universities from Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE

2019 IBA 1st Place Winner: Sultan Qaboos University

Sultan Qaboos University (Muscat, Oman), led by Prof. Mohammed Farfour won the 2019 IBA Competition, an annual prospective basin evaluation contest for geoscience students from universities around the globe. The Sultan Qaboos University team will now travel to San Antonio, Texas, USA to compete in the international finals at the Annual Convention & Exhibition (ACE), taking place on 18 May 2019. The SQU team will compete for a chance to win scholarship funds for their school.

2019 IBA 2nd Place: Lebanese University

The Lebanese University team (Beirut, Lebanon), led by Dr. Ramadan Ghalayini obtained the 2nd place and GUTech (Muscat, Oman), led by Prof. Wilfried Bauer placed 3rd.

The competition was followed by a full day field trip to study the geology of Oman and the Muscat Area. The 8 participating teams were guided to visit Al Khoud, Wadi Bani Kharus, Wadi Haslan, Wadi Bani Awf and Nakhl.

The next AAPG Middle East Region Imperial Barrel Award Competition will take on 15 March 2020 in Bahrain alongside the Middle East Geosciences Conference & Exhibition. See you all there!

2019 IBA 3rd Place: GUTech

We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to our sponsors; Saudi Aramco and Schlumberger. Similarly, we would like to recognize PDO as the sponsor for the field trip and GUTech, who hosted the competition and conducted the students field trip. Thank you all for your generosity! We are proud to be associated with each of you.