URTeC 2025: Best of Papers
Congratulations to the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) 2025 Best Paper Award Winners! Each year one highly ranked paper is selected from each technical program theme as a recognized outstanding contribution to the program. We would like to honor those winners for their participation.
01
THEME 1
Operators’ Forum: Case Studies Highlighting the Multidisciplinary Approach to Exploration, Appraisal, Pilot Tests, and Development
Paul Spiecker
ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company
Development of a Novel, Patented Fracturing Technology Based on Low-Cost Petroleum Coke Light Weight Proppant from Lab-Scale Evaluation to Field-Scale Pilots: Case Studies in the Midland and Delaware Basins
02
THEME 2
Advanced Formation Evaluation
Ezequiel Lombardo
Chevron Argentina, Ltd.
Innovative Approach for Estimating Organic and Inorganic Porosity in Organic Shale Reservoirs: A Case Study in the Vaca Muerta Formation
03
THEME 3
Geological Characterization and Evaluation Spanning the E&P Lifecycle
Dillon Niederhutm
Novi Labs
Can Transfer Learning Be Used to Forecast Production in Frontier Basins? A Case Study from the Powder River Basin
04
THEME 4
Geophysical Reservoir Analysis
Hansel Gonzalez
Delft Inversion
Insights on Uplift the Wave-Equation Based AVO Technology may have on Unconventional Reservoirs: A Vaca Muerta, Neuquen Basin, Argentina, Case Study
05
THEME 5
Geomechanics – The Intersection of Geoscience and Engineering
Zhishuai Zhang
Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
InSAR Characterization of Fluid Movement and Fault Slip Near a Saltwater Disposal Site in the Permian Basin
06
THEME 6
Organic and Inorganic Geochemistry Including Fluid-Rock Interactions
Tim Ruble
Stratum Reservoir
Total, Mobile, and Non-Producible Oil: A Game-Changing Geochemical Method for Optimum Perforation Interval Selection and EOR Strategies
07
THEME 7
Applications of Data Science
Yuxing Ben
Occidental
Demystifying Child Well Degradation with Novel Feature Engineering I: Machine Learning Analysis for Child Well Degradation with One Parent Well in the Delaware Basin
08
THEME 8
Unlocking the Production and Recovery Potential
Robin Singh
The Dow Chemical Company
Novel Foaming Formulations Development to Enable Gas Huff-n-Puff Field Pilots
09
THEME 9
Reserves Estimation and Production Forecasting
Eric Bryan
DeGolyer and MacNaughton
A Diagnostic-Based Methodology to Analyze Multiphase Well Performance and Forecast Gas-Oil Ratio (GOR) or Condensate-Gas Ratio (CGR)
10
THEME 10
Clean Energy Systems for Unconventionals
Christopher Fredd
Blue Angel Energy
Advanced Tracer Interpretation at Utah FORGE Provides New Insights on Completion and Stimulation Challenges for Enhanced Geothermal Systems and Tight Formations