Shaowen Mao

Senior Computational Scientist

[email protected]

Shaowen Mao is a Senior Computational Scientist at ResFrac Corporation.

Before joining ResFrac, Shaowen was a Staff Scientist in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). He holds a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University, where he was honored with the Faculty Award of Excellence, and previously served as a University of California/Los Alamos Entrepreneurial Postdoctoral Fellow at LANL.

His research focuses on energy resources science and engineering, with expertise spanning geothermal energy, hydrocarbon development, underground hydrogen storage, carbon sequestration, and geologic hydrogen production. Dr. Mao specializes in developing and applying advanced computational techniques, including multi-physics simulations and machine learning, to tackle complex problems involving coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical processes in various subsurface systems. His work contributes to advancing sustainable energy solutions and understanding subsurface processes critical to energy and environmental challenges.

Click here for a list of Shaowen’s publications, or to learn more about his research.

Shaowen'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.