Students worked hand-in-hand with a major oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) company in Dallas to explore solutions in wastewater disposal inefficiencies and costly load tracking operations during their fall 2017 MBA Strategic Logistics course with Professor Joe Michels, P.E., C.P.L and Professor Harvey Zimmermann, Director of the Institute of Petroleum Accounting at UNT.

The class, under the leadership of both Dr. Michels and Professor Zimmermann, explored how to reduce the cost of wastewater disposal used in the oil fracking operation.

With more than 21 billion barrels of wastewater produced each year from fracking endeavors, finding optimal solutions for minimizing these costs has vast implications on the company's bottom line. In fact, students uncovered after their initial research that the company spent roughly $40 million dollars in disposing wastewater last year alone, with expenses drastically increasing in recent years.

Uncovering these inefficiencies and the reasons behind them were just the tip of the iceberg. Students were tasked with providing financially appropriate solutions for implementing new technology and innovative solutions to solve the problem, and during their final presentations to the company's senior-level executives they proposed a technology-based solution with an 18-month return on investment.

"For me personally, having the opportunity to present to C-level executives was an incredible experience to take what we had learned in class and apply it to reality," explained 2019 marketing major Kathleen Robertson.

"Books and essays do not teach action. Being able to apply the knowledge was enjoyable and taught us more than what a Scantron could teach," said Alisun Templeton, 2019 MBA supply chain and logistics management major.

The executives from the oil company were equally impressed with the class results, too, announcing that they are now considering a pilot project based on the students' feedback.  An interesting fact that the oil company executives stated was that none of the students had any prior oil and gas experience.

Professor Harvey Zimmermann stated, "The level of challenge that we incorporate in our MBA program with the energy concentration prepares MBA graduates to walk in to many companies and begin producing results from day one. This is just one of many examples of the caliber of program and students that we have in the UNT MBA program."

To see if you can enroll in the MBA program at UNT, contact Assistant Dean Ben Dearman, (940) 369-5005.  Dean Dearman will aid and assist you in your pursuit of a high quality graduate degree.