Garrett Fowler

Chief Operating Officer

[email protected]

Garrett Fowler is Chief Operating Officer at ResFrac, responsible for overseeing client engagement, professional services, and software licensing.

ResFrac is a software company whose primary product is a fully-coupled hydraulic fracture, reservoir, and geomechanics simulator. Garrett has led modeling studies in every major shale basin, as well as geothermal and conventional projects. Prior to ResFrac, Garrett was a reservoir engineer at OXY and Tachyus, working on CO2 EOR, waterfloods, steamfloods, and cyclic steam injection.

Garrett attended Stanford University, where he graduated with distinction, receiving a Master of Science degree in petroleum engineering and a Bachelor of Science in energy resources engineering. Garrett was awarded a 2022 SPE Regional Completions Optimization and Technology Award, a 2023-2024 SPE Distinguished Lecturer, and authored or co-authored 21 technical papers. He is an Eagle Scout, multiple-time Ironman finisher, and a search and rescue diver.

Garrett’s professional publications include:

Shahri, M. , Tucker, A. , Rice, C. , Lathrop, Z. , Ratcliff, D. , McClure, M. , and Garrett Fowler. 2021. High Fidelity Fibre-Optic Observations and Resultant Fracture Modeling in Support of Planarity.
Pearson, M., Fowler, G., Stribling, K.M., McChesney, J., McClure, M., McGuigan, T. , Anschutz, D., and Pat Wildt. 2020. Near-Wellbore Deposition of High Conductivity Proppant to Improve Effective Fracture Conductivity and Productivity of Horizontal Well Stimulations.
Fowler, G., McClure, M., and Craig Cipolla. 2020. Making Sense Out of a Complicated Parent/Child Well Dataset: A Bakken Case Study.
Fowler, G., McClure, M., and Jeff Allen. 2020. RTA Assisted History Matching with a Combined Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Simulator.
McClure, M., Picone, M., Fowler, G., Ratcliff, D., Kang, C., Medam, S., and Joe Frantz. 2020. Nuances and Frequently Asked Questions in Field-Scale Hydraulic Fracture Modeling.
Fowler, G., McClure, M., and Craig Cipolla. 2019. A Utica Case Study: The Impact of Permeability Estimates on History Matching, Fracture Length, and Well Spacing.
Sarma, P., Fowler, G., Henning, M., Kyriacou, S., Thakur, G., Sloss, D., and Wyatt Shipley. 2017. Cyclic Steam Injection Modeling and Optimization for Candidate Selection, Steam Volume Optimization, and SOR Minimization, Powered by Unique, Fast, Modeling and Data Assimilation Algorithms.
Sandler, J., Fowler, G., Cheng, K., and Anthony Kovscek. 2012. Solar-Generated Steam for Oil Recovery: Reservoir Simulation, Economic Analysis, and Life Cycle Assessment.

Garrett'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.

Garrett Fowler

Chief Operating Officer

Garrett Fowler is Chief Operating Officer at ResFrac, responsible for overseeing client engagement, professional services, and software licensing.

Garrett's posts

Meet the ResFrac team

Learn why both independents and supermajors trust ResFrac

Search