Ronald K. Wackowski is a registered professional petroleum engineer with nearly 45 years of experience in oil and gas production and consulting. “Wacko” worked for Chevron before becoming an independent consultant. His particular areas of expertise include waterflood and CO2 flood optimization, CO2 flood evaluation / implementation, and CO2 flood operations (including sequestration).
While with Chevron, he spent a large part of his career at the Rangely Weber Sand Unit, a large CO2 miscible flood in Northwest Colorado. He worked continuously on this CO2 project from start up in 1986 through 2007, and again between 2011 and 2013. He was an operations supervisor during the preparation for and the start-up of the CO2 miscible flood. After start-up, he performed many functions within the petroleum engineering staff including production and reservoir engineering and training / mentoring. Management positions included operations supervisor, petroleum engineering supervisor and operations manager. His area of responsibility as operations manager included the Rangely Weber Sand Unit and the Aneth Unit, a CO2 flood in southeast Utah. Between 2007 and 2011, he was an Asset Manager on Sumatra focused primarily on waterflood development and optimization.
In 2013, he formed Wackowski Consulting, LLC to assist companies in the evaluation, operation, and optimization of CO2 floods. He has also provided industry training through his own company and in conjunction with the Applied Petroleum Technology Academy and PetroSkills.
Wacko authored / co-authored 7 technical papers on CO2 flooding for the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Presentation invitations include the IPIECA CO2 Capture and Geologic Workshop in Brussels, the Canadian Institute CO2 Sequestration Conference, the First and Second Annual CO2 Recovery Forums at New Mexico Tech, the SPE Forum on Mature Reservoir in Alexandria Egypt, the Third Annual Conference on Carbon Capture & Sequestration, and the CO2 Flooding Conference on multiple occasions, including the 2013 Surveillance Workshop. He has also been on the Midland CO2 Conference Planning Committee since 2014 and the 2018 SPE IOR Technical Planning Committee. He was invited to speak at the 2018 SPE IOR Symposium on the subject of Facility Implications for CO2 Floods.
Pennsylvania State University: BS; Petroleum Engr. (1980)
Utah State University: MS; Business Admin. (2006)
Colorado Professional Engineer # 26809
Member, Society of Petroleum Engineers
