Postgraduate Student

Education & Biography

2013 – 2016: BSc. (Hons) Geology and Petroleum Technology, University of Buea (Cameroon)

2014 – 2019: Integrated Subsurface (Student)Trainee, Perenco O&G , Cameroon

2017 – 2020: Professional Masters in Petroleum Geoscience & Engineering,  University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon

2020 – 2021: Junior Petroleum Engineer, Millennium Oil and Gas Engineering, Cameroon

2020 – 2023: Instructor/Teaching Assistant, Petroleum Training Program, University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon.

2021 – 2022: MSc. Subsurface Energy Systems, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

(+ Gas Solutions Petrophysics Intern with BP) – Summer Internship

2023 – present: PhD, Lyell Centre (GeoEnergy Group), Heriot-Watt University, UK

Research Interests

• Reservoir Performance analysis based on field / experimental data  
• Uncertainty characterization and feasibility study for subsurface storage
• Integrating geoscience and engineering datasets to investigate / improve workflows

PhD project (EPSRC funded)

Title: “Evaluation of fault leakage rates in the context of subsurface hydrogen and carbon storage”

Temporary storage of hydrogen or permanent storage of carbon dioxide in the subsurface requires a profound understanding of associated risks for leakage, bearing environmental, political, and economic risks that are still to be quantified. Faults can pose a potential risk of leakage; they might already be hydrodynamically conductive, or conductivity might be triggered by an increase in fluid pressures due to CO2 or H2 injection. Fluid pressure increase, and thus effective stress decrease, depends on the vicinity of the faults to the injection well. Drilling an injection well near a known fault is rather discouraged, while it remains unknown if faults can act as leakage pathways over engineered time scales on the order of < 10⁵ years.

This study will build on data (laboratory, field) and upscaled modelling concepts available in our two groups to simulate a wide range of combinations for fault fracture networks and laboratory derived fracture permeability data. This will be done under realistic storage conditions with fluid pressure changes characteristic for a near wellbore and a far field example. Outputs of modelling scenarios will then be evaluated statistically to determine the risk of fault leakage within engineering time scales and considering saline aquifers with corresponding caprock thicknesses, stresses, pressures and temperatures that are realistic for potential storage scenarios in the North Sea.

In this context, we will investigate the impact of multiphase flow effects on fault leakage from geological reservoirs used for fluid storage, focusing specifically on CCS and hydrogen. This research will ground on recent data that has been obtained from multiscale 4D X-ray imaging at the Swiss Light Source. It will provide new and detailed insights into the multiphase fluid dynamics in rough fractures. Using novel data from synchrotron experiments will support more accurate predictions of the potential fluid leak rates from subsurface reservoirs. These are urgently needed to improve our confidence in subsurface fluid storage over long periods of time. This research can be divided into the following objectives:

1. Develop a robust understanding of multiphase flow in rough fractures, based on 4D flow data. The data will be analysed towards displacement to obtain relative permeability and capillary pressure curves at a given effective stress but with varying surface roughness, aperture heterogeneity, and flow rates (capillary numbers).
2. Represent fracture flow phenomena at the Darcy scale in physical models for fractures and fracture networks. This will support caprock leakage risk assessments by improving our confidence in the determination of leak rates by bringing together fracture network data (from previous research by the PI/co-Is) and upscaled fluid displacement models from this research.

📧 Email: sba2002@hw.ac.uk