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

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

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.

Advanced ‘proppant transport in the well’ capabilities are now implemented in ResFrac!

Proppant transport in the well is an intriguing topic that has attracted a lot of interest in recent years [1-8]. Proppant transport processes determine the uniformity of proppant placement, which has a direct impact on productivity. Cipolla et al. estimate that the difference between poor and excellent proppant uniformity is about $2.5M in net present value per well.

Digesting the Bonkers, Incredible, Off-the-Charts, Spectacular Results from the Fervo and FORGE Enhanced Geothermal Projects

I’m out of superlatives – I used them all up in the title. But seriously – Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) projects have had a really, really good summer. In this article, I summarize the results that have been recently presented by Fervo and FORGE. At their annual Tech Day and in a white paper posted this week (Norbeck et al., 2024), Fervo Energy provided their first update on Project Cape, a Utah project where they are developing 400 MWe of new production over the next two years. So far, fourteen wells have been drilled, and three of them have been stimulated.