Student competition aims to help oil firms deal with sand control issues

Monday 03 October 2022

Dr Gbenga Oluyemi, Chair of SMN
Robert Gordon University is playing host to a competition which challenges students and recent graduates to come up with their own solutions to help the oil and gas sector tackle a major production issue.

The Sand Management Network (SMN) Students Annual Competition 2022 is being held at RGU on Wednesday 16 November. It’s a brand-new event for the network which aims to showcase new up-and-coming talent in the sand management community.

The SMN has been in place for 20 years and has thirty member companies, a mix of operator, service companies and universities who work together to deal with sand-related issues both onshore and offshore. Regular events are held to discuss and debate sand related case studies.

For the student competition, SMN members will nominate talented individuals to take part and a panel of industry experts will assess the students with six going through to the final event next month.

The six students will then present their sand management ideas before being asked probing questions about their plans. A winner will be selected on the day of the presentations after a stage of evaluation, resulting in the network organisation awarding cash prizes to the top three presenters.

Chair of SMN, Dr Gbenga Oluyemi (inset), said: “I am delighted to announce the SMN Students’ Annual Competition, a new event in the expanding portfolio of events run by the Sand Management Network.

“At SMN, we are constantly innovating and looking for ways to serve our industry and community better. This is the driver for the launch of the annual competition for students.

“With this event, we aim to inspire the next generation of sand management experts in key discipline areas of sand prediction, sand control, sand transport and top-side sand management”. 

Anyone interested in entering can find out more on their website:

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