SIFT Student Industry Field Trip
The SIFT program invites one student representative from each of the Canadian universities offering degrees in geology, geophysics and/or geological engineering to Calgary for a comprehensive introduction to the petroleum industry.
The SIFT program was created by Bill Ayrton in 1977 and is sponsored by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. While the first trip lasted just four days, today the SIFT trip lasts a full two weeks following the end of the winter school term.
During this two-week period, the students attend several lectures presented by experienced, well-known professionals in the petroleum industry. Topics covered in these lectures include: well logging and log interpretation, carbonate and clastic reservoirs, heavy oil, international and Canadian east coast exploration, and geophysics to name a few. In addition to the lectures, students participate in core workshop seminars, field trips to the Rocky Mountains and Dinosaur Provincial Park, a rig tour, a fly-over of the Rocky Mountains, and a student-industry wine and cheese.
Throughout the duration of the trip, students are also involved in an exploration game. The students are grouped in teams of 4 or 5, with each team representing a fledgling oil and gas company. Each company is given an initial sum of money, which they use to buy land and drill wells. At the end of the trip, the companies present their results to judges who determine the winning team for best geological interpretation and for most money earned. This game allows the students to apply techniques practiced in the petroleum industry.
SIFT: The School of Hard Rocks
This 5 minute video highlights many components of this 10 day Student Industry Field Trip. It will explain why this program exists and what it is meant to achieve; volunteers and students will give you insight to why the program is so successful and enjoyed each year by so many students
View Video
Student Industry Field Trip (SIFT) Poster
English
SIFT Poster (408kb PDF)
French
SIFT Poster (423kb PDF)
For more information, please contact:
Dawn Hodgins, Imperial Oil Resources Canada
Tel: (403) 232-5931 Email: dawn.c.hodgins@exxonmobil.com
2008 SIFT a Huge Success
By Thérèse Lynch and Mike DesRoches
The 2008 Student Industry Field Trip (SIFT) was a tremendous success. The goal of SIFT is to introduce university students who might not otherwise have an opportunity to become familiar with the Canadian petroleum industry through classroom lectures, core workshops, an exploration game, several field trips, a Rocky mountain fly-over, and a variety of opportunities to talk to professionals who work in our industry.
The CSPG's SIFT Committee hosted 31 students in Calgary for the first two weeks in May 2008. The students, most in their third year of study, were from all of the universities across Canada with geology departments. The students are studying in fields including geology, geophysics, and petroleum engineering, though most are future geologists.
Every year, SIFT students have the opportunity to participate in a summer job finding program. This year seven of the SIFT students were hired by petroleum companies including ConocoPhilips, EnCana Corporation, Harvest Energy, Paramount Energy, Shell, and Total.
In order to run such a tremendous program, SIFT has phenomenal industry support; from the 20 volunteers on the organizing committee to the many industry professionals who volunteer their time as session lecturers and especially from the companies who support us financially. Shell, EnCana Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Devon, Imperial Oil, and Talisman were our major industry sponsors this year.
Over the course of the two-week field trip, students are exposed to all aspects of the petroleum industry. They attend many talks which cover topics including sequence stratigraphy, geophysics, international and frontier exploration, oil and gas production technology, and well logging. They spend two days at the EUB core facility learning about siliciclastic and carbonate depositional environments and what they look like in core, as well as learning about heavy oil and oilsands. The students go to Dinosaur Provincial Park for a one day field trip and have the opportunity to visit parts of the park that are not open to the public, looking at the clastic depositional environments exposed in the park and, of course, looking for dinosaur bones.
They also spend four days traveling through the Rocky Mountains, learning about Western Canadian geology from industry experts Peter Fermor, Kevin Root, and David Repol. On the final day of SIFT, the students get to do a fly-over of the same route that they followed during the four-day field trip, to allow them to have a bird's eye view of the major structures and features. The final field trip that the students participate in is a rig tour, giving them the opportunity to view the equipment that they have been learning about in action and hearing directly from the individuals working on the rig what it is like to live and work there.
In the evenings, the students participate in the Exploration Game, where they are divided into teams of three or four students. During the course of the two weeks, the students drill wells, buy land, make farmin and other land deals with the other teams, learn to read well logs, and construct stratigraphic and structural cross-sections as well as isopach and structure maps. On the final day of the game, they present their geological interpretations and explain their exploration approach to a panel of industry judges in the hope of winning either of the coveted financial or technical awards available from the judges.
This year's winners of the Larry Strong Financial Award were Julie Menier from the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Catherine Goulet from the Université du Québec à Montréal, Darren Lefort from St. Mary's University, and Dainis Burton from Simon Fraser University. This year's winners of the Bill Ayrton Technical Award were Renee Crant from Memorial University, Melissa Murphy from the University of New Brunswick, Andrew Weber from the University of Regina, and Ryan Kennedy from St. Francis Xavier University.
The students are kept very busy through the two weeks but they also have the opportunity to bond with one another and share their many new experiences. Many of the students form friendships and connections that will last for the rest of their lives and a number will find jobs in Canada's petroleum business in future years and become part of our big team, looking for oil and gas, wherever it may be hiding.
