About

Mark, Lauren and Wayne

Mark McClure

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Mark McClure established ResFrac in 2015 to help operators maximize value through the application of advanced geomechanics and reservoir simulation.

Before founding ResFrac, Mark was an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. After earning a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering and a Master of Science in petroleum engineering from Stanford University, Mark earned a PhD in energy resources engineering at Stanford. His academic research focuses on hydraulic fracturing, diagnostic fracture injection tests, induced seismicity, and enhanced geothermal systems.

Mark has earned multiple awards, including the Hank Ramey Award from Stanford University, Best Paper in Geophysics, an outstanding paper award at URTeC, Hart Energy 40 Under 40,  SPE Regional Awards for Completions Optimization and for Young Member Service, and SPE’s TWA Energy Influencers award. On four occasions, he has received recognition from journals as an outstanding reviewer.

In his free time, Mark enjoys hiking, playing with his dog, watching sports, and traveling.

Click here for a list of Mark’s publications.

Mark's posts

What ‘company culture’ means to us

We recently held our annual company retreat. This is an important event because we are a fully remote company, and it gives us the chance to get together in-person and spend quality time. This year, we did the retreat in Houston, following URTeC and our annual symposium. We visited Space Center Houston, went to an Astros game, and ate BBQ and Tex-Mex. As a Houston native, I picked some of my favorite things to do in town! We also held a meeting on ‘company culture.’ I asked the group – how do you perceive our company culture? What do we do well, and what could we do better? Here are the highlights.

Read more

Horizontal hydraulic fractures in shales: are they real?

In ResFrac, we are always challenging ourselves—what should we be doing better? What new capabilities should we add to the simulator? One of our newest projects is adding horizontal fracture propagation. Under most conditions, hydraulic fractures form vertically, not laterally. However, in specific circumstances, horizontal fractures develop. Sometimes, they form in addition to vertical fractures, and sometimes, they form exclusively without any vertical fractures. Horizontal fracture propagation has not conventionally been included in commercial hydraulic fracturing simulators, but we think this is a capability well-worth developing.

Read more

Previewing the Seven(!) ResFrac Papers to be Presented at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference

Next week, ResFrac will be coauthoring seven papers at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC). These papers include: operator case studies in the Haynesville, Marcellus, and Bakken, a study quantifying the effect of proppant uniformity on production and economics, a new procedure generalizing the Devon Quantification of Interference (DQI) method, and an excellent paper by a University of Texas PhD student on proppant flowback.

Read more

Meet the ResFrac team

Learn why both independents and supermajors trust ResFrac

Search