Summary: Chemical records in FracFocus range from less than one pound to over 1 million pounds. Disclosures that fail to report quantity data obscure a critical piece of information. Open-FF found that Utah had 854 such disclosures by 32 different operators.
Background on chemical quantity omissions
- The national disclosure instrument, FracFocus, documents the fracking chemicals that have been used in over 220,000 fracking jobs in the US since 2011. This extensive data set is especially important because it is one of the few resources available to the public about fracking chemicals. As such, FracFocus should be central to analyses and debates about fracking patterns and impacts. However, poor data integrity can undermine the usefulness of this resource.
- The Open-FF project is trying to make errors in FracFocus more visible to stakeholders. Our aim is to alert users of FracFocus data to weaknesses and to encourage operators to correct problems and prevent future errors.
- Fracking chemical quantities reported in FracFocus can range from less than one pound to over one million pounds. Open-FF has found that data records for chemical quantity are incomplete in over 35,000 disclosures and more are added monthly. These FracFocus data omissions prevent users from understanding the scope of the environmental and public health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing operations.
- This post outlines the data omissions for this state using a FracFocus data set downloaded on Feb 19, 2025.
The scope of Utah’s data omission issue
As of this date, Utah has 4,104 disclosures in FracFocus. We have detected records with omitted quantities in 20.8% of those disclosures. The following figure illustrates Utah’s pattern over time.
The following table summarizes the operating companies with affected disclosures in Utah. (Only companies with at least 10 affected disclosures are listed.) To see examples of data omission, follow “Link to Report” for summaries of specific companies. On those pages, you will find lists of the chemicals that haven’t been fully reported.
| Operator | detected number of disclosures in Utah | link to Open-FF report |
|---|---|---|
| Middle Fork Energy Parterns, LLC | 209 | |
| Finley Resources, Inc. | 151 | link to report |
| EP Energy | 127 | link to report |
| Crescent Point Energy US Corp | 86 | |
| Berry Petroleum Company, LLC | 78 | |
| Uinta Wax Operating, LLC | 64 | |
| Newfield Exploration | 34 | link to report |
| Altamont Energy | 13 | |
| Bill Barrett Corp | 12 |
As of this date, many companies continue to publish disclosures without full quantity data.
Quantity omissions in Open-FF data sets
For Open-FF data sets, although we detect and flag omitted data, we do not attempt to fill it with estimated values. Instead we leave the values as “no data” so that any aggregate calculations are not compromised by data not directly reported by the industry. In cases in which a user wishes to use an estimate, we suggest using the median PercentHFJob value for that chemical as a proxy. From there, a mass can be calculated from the “job_mass” in the data set.
Title image credit: Becky Mansfield (modified by author)