Summary: New FracFocus data promises to help users understand patterns of sources of water: such as ground, surface or produced water. Open-FF examined the first year of these fields from a number of perspectives to gauge their veracity. We conclude that 1) because it is optional for companies to report this data, large gaps exist in the set including the complete lack of reports from several major companies. 2) FracFocus data roughly agree with data collected by Colorado but not Pennsylvania. 3) There are a number of ways that many individual disclosures report inconsistent, misused or completely wrong information in these fields. Therefore, data from individual disclosures should be considered suspect and checked with external sources.
Fracking jobs often use tremendous volumes of water and where that water comes from is of interest to many stakeholders. When it is fresh water, are fracking jobs competing with other users or impacting local habitats? When it is produced water from other wells (the wastewater that comes to the surface during oil or gas extraction), what other chemicals are being added to the reported fracking chemicals?
Before late 2023, FracFocus data provided little information about the source of water used as a carrier. Companies would occasionally use the TradeName or IngredientName fields to signify the use of produced water, but it was far from consistent. Instead, the disclaimer at the bottom of every disclosure —
“Total Water Volume sources may include various types of water including fresh water, produced water, and recycled water”
— signaled that FracFocus water source information was essentially non-existent.
But in Dec. 2023, FracFocus added a new section to disclosures. This optional data allows operators to report types of water sources used for the disclosed fracking job. In this section, companies report to readers the percentages of “Surface water,” “Ground water,” “Produced water,” and “Other” that makes up the fracking fluid of the job. According to FracFocus, the section was added to help the companies more clearly report “that the water being used on a fracturing job was not all fresh water and be proactive with representing their company’s ESG mission.”
This additional data has the potential to be very informative to many stakeholders. Open-FF recently began summarizing this data by state. For example, here is a recent summary for Oklahoma:
Factors undermining usefulness
As part of our effort to uncover omissions and errors in FracFocus, we explored this new data set to understand its potential for users. Unfortunately, as we have investigated this new data, we’ve learned that several factors limit how useful it is.
Lack of full reporting
The new water source fields are optional – companies are under no obligation to report water source. Throughout 2024, only about half of disclosures across FracFocus include these data:
Because this data is optional, it is possible that whatever data is presented is not representative of all fracking jobs. As seen in the figure below, clearly some states are better represented than others.
While some companies have reported water sources for all of their disclosures, many companies are reporting in under half of their fracking jobs (orange circles in the figure below). Several large fracking operators have reported in none of their disclosures and include EOG Resources, Pioneer Natural Resources, Occidental Oil and Gas, Endeavor Energy Resources, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., and EQT Production.
Data quality
While non-representative data is concerning, there are indications of more serious issues due to poor quality data. As we’ve mentioned, Open-FF can only discover errors through data released to the public. But we have found multiple sources of inconsistencies and errors in the water source data that undermine the usefulness of this new data source.
Within-disclosure inconsistencies
As mentioned above, operators sometimes use fields like TradeName or IngredientName to signal that the carrier is produced water. We have found disclosures with such indicators but the reported water source data conflicts with it. Below are a few examples:
| API number and link to FracFocus disclosure | Operator | Issue |
| 42227422410000 42227422390000 | SM Energy | Although more than a third of the water is declared “Produced Water”, the water source report is 100% Other. |
| 42475385220000 42475385210000 | Continental Resources | The only declared water carrier is named “Produced Water” but the water source report is 100% groundwater. |
Incomplete or misunderstood water source information
We find that in about 20% of water source disclosures, the reported water source categories do not sum to 100%. In some cases (e.g., 42287327810000, 35085211280000), the operator reports the same number in the water source field as the PercentHFJob field. This is a misunderstanding of the water source data field.
In other cases, a less-than 100% value across water source categories (e.g. 33061052850000) indicates an incomplete entry – there are other sources in this example, but are not reported.
While sometimes a user be able to reconstruct the whole water source picture (as in the example above), they usually will not because there are often no clues to which of the categories the missing water belongs.
In both cases, users must know to investigate and correct each case (which is time consuming) or throw out disclosures that account for less-than 100% of the categories.
State data evidence
We used state-reported water source data to verify the FracFocus water source data. In the case of Colorado (see report here), the data in individual disclosures as well as larger patterns were largely consistent.
However, Pennsylvania state data conflicted with the FracFocus water source data (see report here). Discrepancies in disclosures for identical fracking jobs were often quite large and the larger picture that the two data sources painted were different. Because the PA data were quite detailed, we suspect the errors lie within FracFocus data.
Using these independent data sources can help users know how much to trust FracFocus. Because the data from the two states imply a very inconsistent picture, we caution users to expect inconsistency in other states as well.
“Other” category
Finally, another factor that makes FracFocus water source data less useful is the “Other” category. There is no information available about what “Other” might refer to. If it is not Surface water, Ground water or Produced Water, what is it?
As of Dec. 2024, roughly 20% of the disclosures with water source used the “Other” category. The vast majority of those report “Other” for more than half of the water in the fracking job.
More?
As we find out more about the water source data, we will put our reports here.
Title art: Becky Mansfield (modified by author)