Shell and Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) have signed a contribution agreement under which students from SQU’s College of Engineering will participate in the Shell Eco-marathon Asia in 2017.

Dr Ali bin Saud al Bemani, vice-chancellor of SQU, signed the agreement with Chris Breeze, Shell’s country chairman in Oman, and Mohammed Mahmood Al Balushi, Shell Oman Marketing Company’s managing director, at a function held at SQU.

Students from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of the College of Engineering at SQU participated in the 2015 and 2016 competitions that were held in Manila, Philippines with prototypes of fuel efficient vehicles.

Based on the new agreements, SQU’s team will participate in the Shell Eco-marathon competition scheduled to take place in Singapore, in early 2017.

Shell’s Eco-marathon competition encourages students to either design a prototype vehicle which focuses on maximum efficiency, or an urban concept vehicle, which encourages more practical designs for every-day life. Throughout the history of the competition, the most fuel efficient car ever designed by a Shell Eco-marathon student team was achieved in 2009 in Europe, and was capable of driving 3,771 km on a single litre of fuel - the equivalent of driving from Muscat to Ankara.

 Breeze said: “We are very pleased to see that Sultan Qaboos Univeristy is set to compete in Shell’s Eco-marathon for the third time. I hope the competition will help develop students’ talents and make a contribution to sustainability in Oman.

“We are also very proud of SQU team’s achievement in this year’s challenge where they achieved 5th place in the Prototype Gasoline category by completing 281 km per liter of gasoline, breaking the Arab record in the history of the competition. I wish the students all the best in the 2017 challenge that will be part of a bigger innovation event called ‘Make the Future’ in Singapore,” he said. – TradeArabia News Service