Over 140 young specialists from 14 Russian universities took part in the Russian Student League - PetroCup

On April 27-28, 2021, Nafta College hosted yet another Russian Student League on Well and Reservoir Management using PetroCup simulator. Over the years, the best Russian universities have been competing for the PetroCup trophy.  

The League was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the passing of Dr. Nikolai Neprimerov, a prominent Soviet and Russian scientist, physicist and a petroleum expert.

This year, the League was hosted by the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technology at Kazan Federal University.

Young petroleum students formed 9 teams from different parts of Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Almetyevsk, Samara, Tomsk and Izhevsk). They all arrived to Kazan to compete for the PetroCup trophy. 5 teams participated online from Moscow, Tyumen, Ufa and Ukhta 

St. Petersburg Mining University took the first place, Almetyevsk State Petroleum Institute took the second place and the third place was taken by Tyumen State University.

There is an ongoing competition between the St. Petersburg Mining University and the Almetyevsk State Petroleum Institute, and it has been going on for several years now. This year, the team from the Russia's "Northern Capital", had a very unsuccessful start and had the worst score at the first shot, yet they made an remarkable leap right from the bottom of the standings all the way to the first place coming out victorious!

All teams received the best wishes and recommendation in person and online from the principal of Nafta College - Dr. Artur Aslanyan, vice academic principal of KFU - Dr. Danis Nurgaliyev, R&D director of Gazprom Neft - Dr. Mars Khasanov and the principal of Industrial University of Tyumen - Dr. Veronika Efremova.

In his address to the attendees, Dr. Mars Magnavievich noted that Nafta College has started an interesting and yet important movement in Russia – the publicity of mathematical modeling.

“Its goal is to find engineering solutions. Without doubt this is a vital tool in the era of digital transformation. I would like you to not only understand how to use the simulators and software as a tool, but also to understand how these simulators work behind the scenes.” - Dr. Mars Magnavievich. M. Khasanov also stressed the importance of handling information in modeling and emphasized that the ability to use the information processing using mathematical modeling, as well as the having an innovative approach will allow students to become successful in any field.

After the last Shot came to an end, a Sofoil expert Dr. Vladimir Krichevsky, conducted an in-depth debriefing, highlighting the achievements and mistakes of each team, which allowed them to understand why they took their respective places in standings.

At the closing ceremony of the League, the principal of Nafta College - Dr. Artur Aslanyan thanked all participants for attending and invited all the teams to compete for the PetroCup trophy once again in 2022.

The League was sponsored by the oil service company Sofoil LLC.

The industrial partners of the event were: PJSC Gazprom Neft, PJSC Tatneft, LLC LUKOIL-Engineering, who sponsored the university teams.

PetroCup is an unparalleled interactive simulator developed by Nafta College, and can simulate the behavior of a real asset responding to user interactions (drilling, workovers, surveillance). As part of the League, the teams had to go through a five-year field development cycle while keeping good economic efficiency. This is a rather complex task that requires a multidisciplinary team to work together comprising (manager, economist, geologist, petrophysicist, geophysicist, hydrodynamicist, driller, production technologist, and PPD). Just like in a real enterprise, they had to combine skills of all members and work out an asset management strategy based on initially incomplete information. The interface of the simulator is provided in the form of a web application, which allows teams to participate online from all parts of the world.