Thomas Finkbeiner

Senior Technical Advisor

[email protected]

ResFrac is honored to welcome Dr. Thomas Finkbeiner to the team as a Senior Technical Advisor.

Thomas has long been a notable voice in the geomechanics world. After receiving his PhD from Stanford University, Thomas started his career in 1998 with GeoMechanics International (GMI), and subsequently held roles with Baker Hughes and OMV. Since 2016, Thomas has been a research professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, focusing his research on geo- and rock mechanics, rock physics, CO2 sequestration, and geothermal development. Having lived many years in the region and consulted with Saudi Aramco and others, Thomas brings valuable technical and regional expertise to the ResFrac team. We look forward to his contribution as we develop and penetrate the rapidly growing Middle East market.

Thomas's posts

Production Impact of Horizontal Fractures

At the 2025 SPE International Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, we (Dontsov, Zoback, McClure, and Fowler) presented “Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Along Bedding Planes Might Be More Prevalent Than We Think” (SPE-226637). The paper reviewed case studies with evidence of horizontal or bedding plane fractures from microseismic, fiber optics, core observations, and casing deformation.

Testing the new Kryvenko model for proppant washout

What controls proppant placement during hydraulic fracturing? As described in Chapter 8 from McClure et al. (2025), ResFrac incorporates a variety of physical processes – viscous drag, gravitational settling, hindered settling, clustered settling, bed slumping, and more. In addition, ResFrac accounts for the complex physics associated with proppant flowing out of the wellbore (Dontsov, 2023; Ponners et al., 2025).

$Horizontal fracture initiated along weak bedding plane or frictional interface in ResFrac$

Horizontal hydraulic fractures in ResFrac

Horizontal hydraulic fracture propagation is believed to be widespread in shale plays where the frac gradient approaches the overburden – such as the Vaca Muerta, Utica, and Montney. However, horizontal propagation is nearly always ignored in hydraulic fracture modeling. In ResFrac, we are obsessed with ‘getting the physics right’, and so naturally, we extended our simulator to handle horizontal fracturing. The first version of this new capability was released earlier this year. We are eager to start collecting feedback from users, which will help us to fine tune the algorithm and workflow.