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Okwen, Roland T

Reservoir Engineer
Illinois State Geological Survey

Address and Contact Information

116 Natural Resources Building
615 E Peabody Dr.
M/C 650
Champaign, IL  61820
(217) 244-2869

Education

Roland T. Okwen obtained his BS in Chemistry from the University of Buea, Cameroon, in 1997. He later relocated to Denmark where obtained a master's degree in Petroleum Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark in 2005. Roland obtained his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) in 2009. While at USF, he also served as student representative in the University's Graduate Council from 2007–2009. He then obtained a European Union post-doctoral scholarship to work as a research associate at Schlumberger Cambridge Research Center, England, from 2009 to 2010. Prior to joining ISGS, he worked as a consultant in a carbon dioxide and municipal wastewater in project with the University of South Florida.

Research Biography

Research Interests

  • Enhanced oil recovery
  • Reservoir simulation (black oil, compositional, and geomechanical) in unfractures and naturally fractured formations
  • Conventional, non-conventional, and unconventional resources
  • Reservoir geomechanics
  • Resource and reserve estimation
  • Production forecast and field development
  • Economic analysis
  • Carbon Capture Utilatization and Storage (CCUS)

Current Projects

  • Reservoir assessment and modeling of EOR processes in the Illinois Basin
  • Depositonal Environement and Efficiency Project (www.CO2efficiency.org)
  • Accelerating the Use of Anthropogenic CO2 for EOR in the Illinois
  • Center for Geologic Storage of CO2
  • A Nonconventional CO2-EOR Target in the Illinois Basin: Oil Reservoirs of the Thick Cypress Sandstone
  • Pressure managenet and CO2 plume control strategies (BEST Project)

Selected Service Activities

Selected Publications

  • Okwen, R., Fang, Y., and Frailey, S.M.  (2014). "Effect of geologic depositional environment of CO2 storage efficiency." Energy Procedia 63(0): 5247-5257.
  • Mehnert, E., Damico, J.R., Frailey, S.M., Leetaru, H.E., Okwen, R., Storsved, B., and Valocchi, A.  (2014). " Basin-scale modeling for CO2 sequestration in the basal sandstone reservoir of the Illinois Basin-Improving the geologic model." Energy Procedia 63(0): 2949-2960.
  • Roy, W. R., Mehnert, E., Berger, P. M., Damico, J. R. and Okwen, R. T. (2014), Transport modeling at multiple scales for the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project. Greenhouse Gas Sci Technol. doi: 10.1002/ghg.1424
  • Mehnert, E., Damico, J.R., Frailey, S.M., Leetaru, H.E., Yu-Feng, L., Okwen, R., Adams, N., Storsved, B., and Valocchi, A.  (2013). "Development of a Basin-scale Model for CO2 Sequestration in the Basal Sandstone Reservoir of the Illinois Basin-issues, Approach and Preliminary Results." Energy Procedia 37(0): 3850-3858.
  • Frailey, S.M., I.G. Krapac, J.R. Damico, R.T. Okwen, and R.W. McKaskle. 2012. Sequestration and Enhanced Oil Recovery: Bald Unit Test Site, Mumford Hills Oil Field, Posey County, Indiana, J.H. Goodwin and C.C. Monson (eds.): Illinois State Geological Survey, Open File Series 2012-5, 173 pp. http://library.isgs.uiuc.edu/Pubs/pdfs/ofs/2012/ofs2012-05.pdf
  • Frailey, S.M., T.M. Parris, J.R. Damico, R.T. Okwen, and R.W. McKaskle. 2012. Sequestration and Enhanced Oil Recovery: Sugar Creek Oil Field Test Site, Hopkins County, Kentucky, C.C. Monson and J. H. Goodwin (eds.): Illinois State Geological Survey, Open File Series 2012-4, 234 pp. http://library.isgs.uiuc.edu/Pubs/pdfs/ofs/2012/ofs2012-04.pdf
  • Okwen, R., Mark Thomas, Stewart, M., Maya Trotz, and Cunningham, J.  2012. Conjunctive injection of CO2 and wastewater in a heterogeneous porous formation, Technology and Innovation, vol.14, pp 143-151. http://dx.doi.org/10.3727/194898241X13462021397778.
  • Okwen, R., Stewart, M., and Cunningham, J.  2011.Analytical model for screening potential CO2 repositories, Computational Geosciences, Volume 15, Number 4, 755-770, DOI: 10.1007/s10596-011-9246-2
  • Okwen, R., Stewart, M., and Cunningham, J., 2010, Effect of well orientation (vertical vs. horizontal) and well length on the injection of CO2 in deep saline aquifers, Transp Porous Med, DOI 10.1007/s11242-010-9686-5.
  • Okwen, R., Pu, R., and Cunningham, J., 2010. Remote sensing of temperature variations around major power plants as point sources of heat. International Journal of Remote Sensing, (in press).
  • Okwen, R., Stewart, M., and Cunningham, J., 2010. Analytical solution for estimating storage efficiency of geologic sequestration of CO2. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 4 (1), 102-107, doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.11.002.
  • Okwen, R.T., Stewart, M., Cunningham, J.A. "Storage of CO2 in deep saline aquifers via injection in horizontal wells." Proceedings of the TOUGH Symposium 2009, edited by G. Moridis, C. Doughty, S. Finsterle, and E. Sonnenthal, pp 102-107. Published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL-2790E), Berkeley, CA. Presented in Berkeley, CA, Sept 14-16, 2009.

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