Day 1 Speakers- TORP's IOR and Tracer Workshop 2025
Dr. Lanny Schoeling P.E.
Lanny Schoeling has over 40 years of experience in many technical and managerial positions. He is currently President of EOR Consulting LLC. and Vice President of Oilfield Innovation at NeoTek Energy. Prior, Lanny was Vice President of Engineering and Technical Development for Kinder Morgan CO2 Company and Chief Reservoir Engineer for Unconventional’s at Shell E&P. He holds a Doctor of Engineering in petroleum engineering, and Master’s in chemical engineering. He is a professional engineer in Texas and Kansas. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and was a distinguished lecturer in 1996 for SPE, and author of numerous SPE papers. In 2016, he was awarded the IOR Pioneer Award at the IOR Conference in Tulsa, OK. He is co-inventor on over 20 patents. Recently he was appointed a Texas Member to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission by the State of Texas. (IOGCC). Lanny is also on the Distinguished Lecturer Committee which selects future SPE Distinguished Lecturers.
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Dr. Paul B. Trost, President, Geochemist, Inventor of EORGAS
Paul Trost received a BS Chem, Univ. of Notre Dame, then spent 2 years as an Infantry Combat Lieutenant and was decorated. Post Viet Nam he attended Colorado School of Mines, earning a PhD in Geochemistry. During his professional career he has applied chemistry, geology, geochemistry and biochemisty to mineral, oil/gas exploration/development, and other targets. Typically, he developed new concepts, patented the concepts, built a business, and sold the business to either junior public companies or Fortune 500 companies. Paul co-founded Surtek, a successful EOR company active in chemical flooding. He is an oil and gas independent operator, has conceived, funded, and managed both water and EOR floods (such as CO2, steam, and fire floods). Paul has been granted 20 patents related to chemical, biochemical, and geochemical processes.
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Dr. Reza Barati, Director of the Tertiary Oil Recovery Program (TORP)
Reza Barati is a Don W. Green Professor of Petroleum Engineering and the Director of the Tertiary Oil Recovery Program (TORP) at the University of Kansas (KU). He earned his PhD in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering from KU and worked for the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (EORI) in Wyoming before joining KU as a faculty in 2012. In addition to his academic career, Dr. Barati has extensively worked on several industry and state-funded projects as a consultant. He has also worked for Schlumberger, Halliburton, Kinder Morgan and Chesapeake Energy. Dr. Barati has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and is the editor of a Wily/AGU advanced textbook about Unconventional Reservoirs. He has received several SPE awards for outstanding teaching, research and technical editorship.Dr. Barati is listed as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists published by Stanford University using data from Elsevier’s Scopus in 2022. He is also the founder of PetroEconomic Solutions, LLC, where he applies technical expertise to industry challenges.
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Robert Downey, CEO, Shale Ingenuity:
Mr. Downey has over 40 years of experience in upstream oil and gas and energy technology development. Prior to Shale Ingenuity, he held numerous executive and technical professional positions at Amoco, Encana, Synthetic Genomics, Ciris Energy Inc and Gunnison Energy. Mr. Downey has been awarded several patents in coal bioconversion, reservoir simulation modeling, reservoir engineering and well drilling and completions. Mr. Downey earned a BS in Petroleum Engineering from The Colorado School of Mines.
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James Sorensen, Director of Subsurface Research & Development, Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC)
James Sorensen is Director of Subsurface R&D, Energy & Environmental Research Center, at the University of North Dakota. Mr. Sorensen has over 30 years of experience characterizing and assessing a variety of subsurface resources, including groundwater, petroleum reservoirs, and deep saline aquifers for CO2 storage. He has assessed unconventional tight oil resources in North America for the National Petroleum Council and served on a Society of Petroleum Engineers committee to develop resource classification and categorization guidelines for CO2 storage. Mr. Sorensen holds a B.S. in Geology and M.S. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of North Dakota.
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Mr. L. Stephen Melzer, Director of the CO2 Flooding Conference
Steve Melzer is a consulting engineer in Midland, Texas specializing in horizontal well reservoir depressuring projects, reservoir properties, water flooding and CO2 enhanced oil recovery, CO2 capture and injection projects, and secure geologic storage. He also provides engineering and business planning services for a variety of U.S. and International commercial clients in the oil and gas, industrial gas, coal and power sectors as well as advising policy makers and non-governmental organizations on the subject of CO2 EOR and carbon capture and storage. He has also originated and operated many exploration and production projects in the oil and gas sector. His landmark work on the origin and distribution of residual oil zones (ROZ) has led to their commercial exploitation through the use of both CO2 EOR and horizontal wells and coming utilization in carbon capture and storage. The ROZ work has also led to a team of folks currently documenting a new contribution and science-based explanation of mixed- and oil-wettability in carbonates and certain clastic reservoir rocks. He has been the director of the 30 years of the annual CO2 Flooding Conference and assists in organizing the EOR Carbon Management Workshop, both held each year in December in Midland, Texas. He has served on the Governor of Texas’ FutureGen Board, as a past Director of The University of Texas of the Permian Basin and University Land’s Petroleum Industry Alliance, Plains CO2 Reduction’s and Wyoming’s Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute technical advisory board, and continues to serve on several other out of state and local Advisory Boards and Councils. Steve resides in Midland, Texas. He has a BS in geological engineering from Texas A&M and a MS degree in Engineering (Rock Mechanics) from Purdue University.
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Dr. Jeffrey Rutledge, QPlus Energy, LLC.
Dr. Jeffrey Rutledge is currently an independent consultant with QPlus Energy, LLC, with a focus on EOR in unconventional plays, applying an interdisciplinary approach from reservoir engineering to surface facilities design. Jeff was the lead engineer at Marathon Oil on a miscible gas injection pilot in the Eagle Ford shale. As a member of Marathon’s Eagle Ford Integrated Project, Jeff also focused on PVT characterization of oils to condensates, water disposal, designing the pilot hole logging program, and purchase/underwrite 2500 sq mi of 3D seismic. Before his Eagle Ford shale role, he was Marathon’s Midcontinent Exploration manager, working mainly deep Anadarko Basin, but also supported Marathon’s important Bakken entry. Jeff was also a processing geophysicist in Marathon’s Technology group, working on numerous projects on a worldwide basis. Previous to Marathon, Jeff worked for Schlumberger Geco-Prakla as a Depth Imaging Manager. Previous to that, Jeff was a Research Engineer at Chevron Oil Field Research Company in the area of reservoir simulation research and thermal EOR. Jeff holds a Masters of Petroleum Engineering from the University of Houston, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington, and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Tristan Houser, VP of Operations, Polymer Technologies
Tristan is an emerging expert in the polymer gel solutions space. His experience working with companies both large and small paired with extensive knowledge of field operations make Tristan a valuable asset to the Polymer Technologies team. He oversees a team of very specialized and skilled field techs that help Polytech implemented the technologies successfully.
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Dr. Mehdi Salehi, Reservoir Engineer, Polymer Technologies
Dr. Mehdi Salehi is a reservoir engineer with Polymer Technologies. He is responsible for the selection and engineering design of polymer gel water shut-off, conformance, and tertiary oil recovery applications. He has authored/co-authored more than 30 technical papers focusing on topics such as EOR/IOR, fluid-fluid and rock-fluid interactions, interfacial phenomena and wettability alteration in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs, multiphase flow and transport phenomena, and more.
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Thomas Larson, P.E. Larson Engineering, Inc.
THOMAS LARSON graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. degree in
Ceramic Engineering (Materials Science) and a Master’s degree in Business
Administration. He was a Fellow at the University of Oklahoma where he received his
M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering. Mr. Larson has held engineering positions with
Standard Oil Company in Midland, TX and BHP Petroleum Americas (formerly Energy
Reserves Group, Inc.) in Oklahoma City, OK and Great Bend, KS. Mr. Larson
specializes in drilling, completion and production operations and waterflood design,
unitization and implementation. A Registered Professional Engineer in the State of
Kansas, Mr. Larson is President and owner of Larson Engineering, Inc. and the operating
and management division, Larson Operating Company. He is a partner in Waterflood
Equipment LLC, a company that fabricates skid-mounted injection plants.
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Kyle Roby, Waterflooding Equipment
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Ted Fuchs, Owner/Operator of Swift Services
Ted has been the owner/operator of Swift Services located in Ness City, Kansas, for more than 28 years. Prior to founding Swift Services in 1997, Ted worked for Halliburton. Swift Services provides acid and cement pumping services to the Mid-Continent oil and gas industry. Ted sponsors numerous community activities in the State of Kansas including industry outreach with the Tertiary Oil Recovery Program at the University of Kansas.
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David Mohrbacher, Tertiary Oil Recovery Program (TORP)
David is a Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Kansas, where he teaches reservoir engineering and improved oil recovery. He started work in the oil and gas industry with Amoco Production Company in 1980 and he most recently led efforts to develop improved oil recovery in unconventional reservoirs with Chesapeake Energy. David taught or lead research at the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Wyoming before joining the University of Kansas.
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Dr. Jose Zaghloul, Reservoir Engineering Advisor, Continental Resources
Dr. Zaghloul has more than 30 years of experience in the field of reservoir engineering. Throughout his career, Dr. Zaghloul has played a pivotal role in the development of primary and secondary recovery strategies across both conventional and unconventional fields, both in the USA and internationally. Dr. Zaghloul’s secondary and tertiary recovery experience includes waterfloods, continuous gas floods, N2 and CO2 Enhanced Coal Bed Methane, and Huff n Puff EOR in conventional and unconventional reservoirs. His journey has included tenures at renowned industry leaders such as BP America, BHP Billiton, Ecopetrol, and Chesapeake Energy. Dr. Zaghloul’s expertise encompasses a wide spectrum of skills, including fluid characterization, PVT and EoS modeling, Rate Transient Analysis, Fracture Modeling, and Integrated Reservoir Modeling. Notably, Dr. Zaghloul was recently a key figure in the modeling and design of several unconventional EOR pilots. His commitment to advancing reservoir engineering continues at Continental Resources. Dr. Zaghloul holds a Ph D in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from Penn State University.
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Sabrina Hamner, Petroleum Engineer, Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
Sabrina Hamner is a Petroleum Engineer with the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Her Secondary Education was completed at the University of Wyoming where she obtained B.S. in Energy Resource Science (2011) and Petroleum Engineering (2014), with a minor in Geology. She has worked on multiple projects in the oil and gas industry during her college years, including a two-year working internship study with the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (2012-2014) relating to cross-walking State vs. Federal UIC program requirements. She has completed (6) internships with EnCana Oil and Gas which ranged from reservoir engineering analyses and recommendation of potential entry into the Eagle Ford Shale in West Texas, to water management practices and chemical optimization at the Moneta Divide Field west of Casper, to plunger lift optimization in the Jonah Field southeast of Pinedale Wyoming, to Frac Water Sourcing / Completions in the Haynesville Shale in Northern Louisiana. Sabrina has been working at the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission since 2014 and continues to work with the Agency covering a multitude of roles, ranging from APD processing and approvals of the new drilled wells in Wyoming, to sundry processing (fracture stimulations, well pluggings, etc.), to acting as Hearing Examiner presiding over non-contested drilling and spacing unit creation, infill well programs, downhole and surface commingling approvals and forced pooling applications, etc. She also serves as engineering support for the Commission’s regulation of Class II UIC wells within the state. She had served as Membership Chair to the local SPE Chapter (Wyoming Petroleum Section) from 2015 through 2024. Sabrina lives in Casper, Wyoming with her husband Alan and their three large rescue dogs.