KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 (Bernama) -- Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) has been crowned champion of the EAGE Laurie Dake Challenge 2026 after winning first place in the competition's final round held in Aberdeen, Scotland.
In a statement, UTP said its team emerged champion ahead of the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, in the international student competition in integrated geoscience and petroleum engineering.
Organised by the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE), the competition attracts entries from more than 40 universities worldwide each year.
UTP said the winning team comprised Fong Yuen Sie, Winnie Lo Lin Lin and Noor Amirah Syahirah Noor Aizam from the Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Geoscience programme, as well as Ng Zi Jin from the Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering with Honours programme.
Formerly known as the FIELD Challenge (Fully Integrated Evaluation and Development Challenge), the EAGE Laurie Dake Challenge promotes multidisciplinary collaboration between geoscience and engineering while emphasising technical excellence and commercial decision-making in subsurface field development.
According to UTP, participants were required to interpret complex subsurface datasets, develop integrated field development strategies, and present their recommendations to panels of industry experts. The team emerged as champion following several rounds of assessment and elimination.
Commenting on the achievement, UTP Chair of Geoscience Dr Abdul Halim Abdul Latiff said securing the championship title against some of the world’s leading universities reflected the team’s technical excellence, teamwork and determination.
“This achievement is a testament to the quality of talent we are nurturing at UTP and our commitment to developing future energy professionals capable of addressing increasingly complex global challenges,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of the team, Fong said presenting their ideas before industry experts and competing on an international stage was an invaluable experience.
“More importantly, the challenge showed us that real-world problems rarely fit neatly within a single discipline. We learned the importance of collaboration, adaptability and making decisions in situations where there is no single perfect answer.
“These are lessons that we will carry with us as we move into the next stage of our academic and professional journeys,” she said.
UTP said the achievement reflected the strength of its experiential and industry-focused approach to education, while highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary learning and international collaboration in preparing future professionals for challenges related to sustainability, energy transition and technological advancement.
BERNAMA
