Three-day international festival on oil and gas organised by ‘Society of petroleum engineers’ begins at Universities of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun. SPE is a non-profit professional association which was formed in 1957 at the international level with the vision of being a society of professional excellence providing its members the highest quality life-long learning and continuous personal/professional growth.
Arun Dhand — Director of Media Affairs in UPES disclosed that the student’s chapter of SPE at University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun was formally registered in 2009. The student forum is very active and regularly organises technical events such as paper presentations, poster presentations, technical quizzes, field trips and workshops.
The chapter is also sensitive to its social responsibilities and runs a programme ‘Donate a Sunday’ through which they contribute to social causes like visiting old age homes, orphanages and schools of children with special needs. They also regularly organise social and environmental camps such as tree plantation drives, drug awareness camps, road safety weeks etc.
This chapter has to its credit the rare distinction of being awarded the ‘Gold Standard Award by SPE International’ for three consecutive years viz. 2011, 2012 and 2013 prior to bagging the prestigious ”Global Outstanding Student Chapter” Award in 2014. Dr D.K. Gupta, Head of the Petroleum Engineering department in UPES informed that the fest will witness various events and competitions such as Techuminati (paper presentations).
Virtuoso (Poster Presentations), Noesis (Quiz Competition), Conclave (experience sharing by eminent personalities of the oil and gas industry) and many other technical as well as a few fun events. He also shared that for the very first time students from Pakistani institutes are participating in this festival through video conferencing.