Tom Smith
Tom Smith PE is a registered petroleum engineer who has over 40 years of upstream operations, reservoir, and M&A experience. He joined Marathon Oil in 1981 and was involved with many key new business and technology projects in Wyoming, Utah, Texas, and Colorado. In 2004, he joined Whiting Oil and Gas as a Sr. Operations Engineer managing their non-Bakken Assets in the Rockies. In 2010, Tom assumed the position of Business Development Manager, focusing on drilling JV’s and Acquisitions and Divestitures which led to over $1 billion in business transactions in the Bakken, DJ, Green River, and Uinta Basins.
Tom co-founded GeoBrines International, LLC in 2022. His close ties to the oil and gas industry are key to bringing an “all of the above approach to minerals exploration” to SPE, AAPG, and SEG through presentations at various industry-sponsored venues. Tom has a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from Montana Tech (1981). He is a registered Petroleum Engineer in Wyoming since 1986. He has been a member of SPE since 1978 and is active in several professional organizations and associations.
GeoBrines International GBI, and a host of other "out of the barrel" thinkers, are currently developing processing technology to take from the atmosphere and use it in a CCUS process with mineral rich brines to permanently store the CO₂ as an alkaline earth carbonate product, such as aggregate commonly used for road base and in concrete. Demonstration scale testing is planned under a DOE funded project at a suitable in-field site where Calcium and Magnesium Chloride-rich brines are available to further evaluate the efficiency and economic viability of ex-situ CCUS technology as well as the extraction of Energy Relevant Minerals such as Lithium and other battery metals.
Recently, GeoBrines International has entered the Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology space by providing a method of In-situ Conformance Improvement using CO₂ infused brines rich in Calcium Chloride. This technology is a high temperature adaptation of a similar process used for improving the sweep efficiency from fractured waterflooded oil reservoirs. This new EGS technology provides a scalable, targeted method of correcting process fluid flow-path short-circuits between cold-hot well pairs that aren’t providing sufficient heat extraction from the subsurface reservoir at an EGS geothermal power project.