Carlos Vega Ortiz

Senior Reservoir and Completions Engineer

[email protected]

Carlos Vega-Ortiz is a Senior Reservoir and Completions Engineer at ResFrac. He uses physics-based modeling to explore development projects with the dual goals of economic optimization and enhancement of subsurface knowledge. He is an experienced geoscientist with ample field experience and a strong academic background in reservoir characterization.

His career began as a wireline field engineer and operations manager in oilfields across Mexico, Libya, Turkey, and the UK-North Sea. Building on over a decade of hands-on experience, Carlos pursued advanced studies, earning a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an M.S. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Utah.

His research focused on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), unconventional oil and gas, and geothermal projects, combining expertise in petrophysics, reservoir modeling, and machine learning. He has actively contributed to leadership roles in major DOE-sponsored CCS projects as a project coordinator, and led academic collaborations in Mexico, advancing CCS strategies and geoscience research. Additionally, Carlos has mentored students and participated in initiatives aimed at fostering sustainable energy solutions. Carlos recently joined ResFrac as a Reservoir Engineer, contributing to their mission of integrating hydraulic fracturing, geomechanics, and reservoir simulation into unified workflows for improved reservoir performance and decision-making.

On the personal side, Carlos lives in Utah with his family, including his wife, who is a Master’s (MSOH) student at the University of Utah, and their three daughters, aged 19, 13, and 8. His oldest daughter is pursuing a degree in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Carlos enjoys hiking, cooking, photography, and is a passionate Formula 1 enthusiast.

Carlos's posts

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.

What ‘company culture’ means to us

We recently held our annual company retreat. This is an important event because we are a fully remote company, and it gives us the chance to get together in-person and spend quality time. This year, we did the retreat in Houston, following URTeC and our annual symposium. We visited Space Center Houston, went to an Astros game, and ate BBQ and Tex-Mex. As a Houston native, I picked some of my favorite things to do in town! We also held a meeting on ‘company culture.’ I asked the group – how do you perceive our company culture? What do we do well, and what could we do better? Here are the highlights.