$14M in software 'incredible opportunity' for YSU students

The Youngstown State University Research Foundation was awarded a software package valued at $14 million from Schlumberger—a worldwide provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry—that will give students hands-on experience with the tools used by exploration companies throughout the world.

The renewable software grant includes access to the Petrel E&P software and Techlog wellbore software platforms; PetroMod petroleum systems modeling software; and GeoX exploration risk, resource and value assessment software, which will be used for teaching and research.

“This provides an incredible opportunity for students to gain first-hand experience with software used by most of the major resource exploration companies throughout the world,” said Jeff Dick, professor and chair of the YSU Department of Geological and Environmental Studies.

Dick said the Techlog software platform is the teaching and learning centerpiece for the Fall 2018 offering of the Geophysical Well Log Analysis course at YSU. Techlog provides a means for interpreting geophysical well log data for individual oil and gas wells and for combining results from multiple wells to construct a play or basin-wide model to better understand reservoir behavior and assist in targeting areas of interest for future exploration through 3-D or 4-D visualization.

Dick and Tom Jordan, part-time faculty, will also use the Techlog software platform to direct basin analysis research of conventional oil and gas reservoirs of the Appalachian Basin through cooperative arrangements with state agencies and regional oil and gas exploration and production companies.

“Techlog will provide our students with advanced skills, thus broadening their job opportunities in the rapidly growing oil and gas energy industry because they will be able to hit the ground running when they are hired,” Jordan said.

Dick added, “By exposing our students to this hands-on cutting-edge software experience through classroom exposure and undergraduate research opportunities, Schlumberger is helping to prepare a highly skilled STEM workforce that can compete for geology and geophysics jobs anywhere in the world.”