Mark McClure

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

[email protected]

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.

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

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.

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.

Mark's posts

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