Doug Klepacki
Doug started his career in 2005 with Prism Seismic, a consultancy and software developer in Denver, Colorado. His technical focus was on using quantitative 3D seismic methods to inform reservoir property models and fracture characterization. He was involved in development and commercialization of early instances of stochastic seismic inversion and seismic-based water-tight faulted frameworks for structural model building. In 2011 he pivoted to grad school working with the Reservoir Characterization Project at Colorado School of Mines. His research focused on developing a rock texture-based facies model to inform seismic-based, timelapse distributions of petrophysical properties for Denbury’s CO2 EOR project at Delhi Oilfield, Louisiana. Doug joined Occidental petroleum in Bakersfield, California in 2012, and was involved in development drilling and exploration for various conventional and unconventional reservoirs in the San Joaquin Basin. He was lead geoscientist for initial development drilling and greenfield waterflood implementation at Oxy’s 2012 Buena Vista Nose discovery in the Miocene Stevens Turbidites. Doug left California in 2018 to join Cimarex Energy in Tulsa, Oklahoma as Manager of Geophysics. Aside from his day job that focused on adapting classic geophysical datasets to inform characterization of unconventional reservoirs, in 2019 he helped lead installation of a seismometer subscriber array providing enhanced data coverage across the Delaware Basin. In 2020, he led an effort that resulted in Cimarex being the first operator to obtain long-term, static downhole pressure measurements in Delaware Basin deep SWDs to constrain estimates of effective reservoir properties of the deep disposal zone. In 2021 he helped lead an effort to develop a basin-scale hydrological simulation of the Delaware Basin to quantify far-field effects of pressure injection in the Silurian/Devonian disposal zone. Based upon learnings from empirical data and models, Cimarex was a vocal co-lead for implementation of the first Operator-Led Response Plan to be endorsed by the Railroad Commission – the north Culberson/Reeves OLRP . This multi-operator partnership produced an 80% reduction in deep disposal volumes in the Delaware Basin in 2023. Doug is now with Coterra Energy located in Houston, which was formed from the merger of Cabot Oil and Gas and Cimarex Energy. In his current role as Chief Geophysicist he provides remote sensing support to operations in West Texas, the Anadarko Basin, and the Marcellus. Doug has degrees in Geology and Geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines.