LSU PETE Students Spend Summer at PERTT Learning About Research Well #3
June 25, 2026
A group of Petroleum Engineering interns at Research Well #3 at LSU's PERTT Lab, where they spent the summer gaining firsthand experience with active drilling operations alongside industry professionals.
A group of 18 LSU Petroleum Engineering students comprised of sophomores, juniors and seniors spent most of June at LSU’s Petroleum Engineering Research, Training & Testing (PERTT) Lab where they had an up-close experience with LSU Research Well #3, an innovative research well that allows for CO2-related research and field experimentation.
The students rotated through shifts and participated in activities such as rig floor observations, cuttings collection and processing, mud logging support, LWD and formation monitoring, drilling documentation, operational reporting, safety observations, and field photography/video documentation.
“One of the most exciting aspects of the project has been watching students connect classroom concepts to real-world drilling operations in real time,” LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering Chair David Schechter said. “They are seeing firsthand how drilling parameters, mud systems, formation evaluation, rig operations, and operational troubleshooting all come together during active field operations.”
The internship program also helped create a visual and historical archive of the project through daily reports, photos, videos, and technical observation gathered by the students throughout drilling operations.
“I think this resonates strongly because this is not a simulation or laboratory exercise,” Schechter said. “The students are participating around a real drilling operation occurring on LSU’s campus while working directly alongside experienced drilling crews and engineers.”
Some of those crews were engineers from H&P, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Stratagraph, who all made the drilling of Research Well #3 possible.
“I think this resonates strongly because this is not a simulation or laboratory exercise. The students are participating around a real drilling operation occurring on LSU’s campus while working directly alongside experienced drilling crews and engineers.”
David Schechter, chair, Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering
The 18 students who took part in this internship program were recent graduate Samuel Doney of Baton Rouge; seniors Eula Mlay of Lansing, Mich., Caleb Skinner of Collierville, Tenn., Dylan Fruge of Baton Rouge, and Michael Gonzalez and Zinedine Asghar, both of Houston; juniors, Cannon Stringfellow of Pensacola, Fla., Brendan Nerbonne of Norcross, Ga., and Owen Daniels of Camdenton, Mo.; and sophomores Jorien Randle of Ville Platte, La., Jacen Aviles of Cypress, Texas, Nathaniel Dadzie of Baton Rouge, Bryan Nguyen and Nathan Nguyen of New Orleans, Kian Healy of Fairfax, Va., Cole Griffin of Pride, La., Olutobi Adeleye of Natchitoches, La., and Layton Teichroeb of Washington, Okla.
“Since we’re actually doing drilling operations, we get to see what that looks like, which is major if we want to do something more hands on,” Daniels said. “The biggest thing about us coming out here is to learn. We’re working as a team. I’ve never been in a fast-paced environment working with other people. It’s really good experience.”
“Working at PERTT really prepared me for this internship. This is the ultimate field-prep experience,” Doney said. “We have everything from directional drilling to being up in the doghouse seeing how drillers work and being a mud logger and collecting cuttings. This is what students would start off doing after graduating, so it’s perfect.”
LSU Research Well #3 is part of a long lineage of PERTT research wells drilled for research and training purposes. The well features a large-diameter carbon-steel outer casing with corrosion-resistant alloy inner tubing to enable safe CO2 experimentation. The vertical well was drilled to a total of approximately 6800'.
There are currently six full-scale research wells at the PERTT Lab with depths ranging from 1,200-5.200 feet that are used for drilling, well control, flow assurance, multiphase flow, logging, stimulation research and, more recently, CO2-related research and field experimentation.
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