As we pointed out in a recent post, the typical profile of fracking fluids is dominated by roughly 88% water, 11% sand1 and the rest is chemical additives2. However, we’ve found many Ohio fracking disclosures that are dominated by sand instead. As we outlined in that previous post, there are many reasons to believe they are errors. In this post, we detail these problem disclosures from an Ohio-based company, EAP Ohio LLC3.
As you can see from the next figure, most fracking jobs (empty circles) have sand percentages of about 10% for this operator. But for 22 disclosures (filled circles), sand makes up over half of the fluid4.
In addition to these erroneous sand percentages, the masses of some ingredients appear to be wrong as well. For example, because these disclosures report the volume of water they use, we can also estimate the mass of that water.5 In many of these disclosures, the mass reported in FracFocus in the MassIngredient column is much less than it should be based on the volume. These values are shown in table at the bottom of this post and are mapped here6:
Open-FF7 has passed this report to FracFocus to forward to the operator.8 We hope the company will correct these disclosures to reflect the actual percentages and masses used in those fracking jobs. Without accurate disclosures, FracFocus is not a trustable instrument. We will update this post if the disclosures are corrected or if we receive other information from EAP Ohio, LLC.
Disclosure list
Below is a list of the Ohio fracking disclosures for the company, EAP Ohio LLC, that have sand percentages greater than 50%. Click on the API Number to view the FracFocus disclosure for that fracking job. Note the discrepancy between the expected water mass (in pounds) and reported mass in many of the disclosures.
| APINumber (and link) | job end date | Sand PercentHFJob | Expected water mass (pounds) | Reported water mass (pounds) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3406721572 | 2019-06-03 | 91.7 % | 390,000,000 | 73,000,000 |
| 3406721569 | 2019-06-29 | 91.2 % | 360,000,000 | 73,000,000 |
| 3406721570 | 2019-06-29 | 91.8 % | 380,000,000 | 73,000,000 |
| 3406721571 | 2019-06-30 | 86.3 % | 215,000,000 | 71,000,000 |
| 3408120813 | 2019-07-11 | 88.6 % | 276,000,000 | 72,000,000 |
| 3408120811 | 2019-07-12 | 89.3 % | 293,000,000 | 72,000,000 |
| 3408120812 | 2019-07-12 | 89.3 % | 296,000,000 | 72,000,000 |
| 3401922796 | 2022-05-23 | 98.8 % | 333,000,000 | 7,900,000 |
| 3401922797 | 2022-05-23 | 98.8 % | 333,000,000 | 7,800,000 |
| 3401922778 | 2022-06-04 | 67.8 % | — | — |
| 3401922794 | 2022-06-15 | 98.8 % | 333,000,000 | 7,900,000 |
| 3401922795 | 2022-06-15 | 98.8 % | 333,000,000 | 7,900,000 |
| 3406721699 | 2022-07-07 | 63.3 % | — | — |
| 3406721701 | 2022-07-07 | 63.0 % | — | — |
| 3406721680 | 2022-07-26 | 63.1 % | — | — |
| 3406721700 | 2022-07-26 | 63.2 % | — | — |
| 3401922806 | 2022-08-23 | 67.4 % | — | — |
| 3401922807 | 2022-08-23 | 67.4 % | — | — |
| 3401922809 | 2022-09-17 | 67.5 % | — | — |
| 3401922808 | 2022-09-17 | 67.5 % | — | — |
| 3406721725 | 2023-03-20 | 73.0 % | — | — |
| 3402921986 | 2023-06-01 | 82.7 % | 351,000,000 | 8,600,000 |
- The CASRN for sand is
14808-60-7and is commonly called “crystalline silica, quartz” in FracFocus. ↩︎ - We’ve been told that foam-based carriers, that appear in about 2% of FracFocus disclosures, may tolerate more sand. These disclosures use carbon dioxide or nitrogen gases to replace a substantial fraction of the water carrier. None of the disclosures in this report use those gases. ↩︎
- To get a profile of all of this company’s fracking disclosures at FracFocus, go to Open-FF’s Browser page. ↩︎
- The data for this analysis is from the Open-FF data repository created from a FracFocus bulk data download on July 18, 2024. ↩︎
- The mass of one gallon of water in 8.34 pounds. So, the mass of the water in a 10,000,000 gallon fracking job should be reported as 83,400,000 pounds, for pure water. If the water is not pure, the multiplier is typically larger than 8.34, but usually not by much. Differences in water density would not account for the large discrepancies in reported mass. ↩︎
- Click on colored, numbered circles to zoom in to individual wells. Clicking on the marker provides more information. ↩︎
- Open-FF is a public service project to make FracFocus data easier to use. ↩︎
- We’ve been informed that FracFocus cannot release the contact information of the companies. However, FracFocus Support has offered to relay our messages about erroneous disclosures to the companies. ↩︎
Photo citation: Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2020. (modified by author)
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