Summary: Compared to other states in FracFocus, Montana had moderate fracking activity until about 2015 and then tapered down. Since 2021, activity has increased, often with much larger fracking jobs than earlier years.
On this page we provide summaries of data, links to resources and a collection of Open-FF articles focused on Montana. Click here for a different state or the Open-FF’s home page. At the bottom of this page is background on the Open-FF Project.
Quick Stats from FracFocus for 2023
- Number of wells fracked: 59 in 4 counties
- Typical water use: 8,040,000 gallons
- Typical sand use: 4,100,000 pounds
- Typical added chemicals: 98,400 pounds
- Maximum added chemicals: 346,000 pounds
- Number of trade secret claims: 275 with a total mass of 597,000 pounds
- Most active operating companies: Kraken Operating LLC; White Rock Oil & Gas, LLC; EMEP Operating, LLC
Stats details
| Median | Max | Total all wells | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water Use (gallons) | 8,040,000 | 19,100,000 | 488,000,000 |
| Sand Use (pounds) | 4,100,000 | 17,000,000 | 345,000,000 |
| Chemical additives (pounds) | 98,400 | 346,000 | 6,920,000 |
| Trade Secret records (pounds) | 32 | 76,700 | 597,000 |
Notes:
– These 2023 statistics are calculated from a Sept 12, 2024 download from FracFocus.
– Water use (in gallons) is disclosed as TotalBaseWaterVolume.
– Sand use is the quantity of the material, “Quartz (SiO2)” CASRN: 14808-60-7. Other proppants are sometimes used instead of this material.
– Chemical additives includes all records (except water and sand) that Open-FF has been able to resolve to an authoritative CASRN identity.
– Masses are calculated and/or directly disclosed for most chemicals. For these stats, when not enough information is available to provide a mass in a record, we set the value to zero.
– Trade Secrets (also known as Confidential Business Information or Proprietary) are those records that have been explicitly marked by the companies by one of those names. Even though the material’s identity is hidden, quantity data is usually still included.
To visit a county summary, either follow the links when you click on the map or click here for a county table.
Montana articles
FracFocus Trade Secrets in Montana
Open-FF found 369 Montana wells with trade secret records. Broad patterns and examples are illustrated.
Montana: chemical quantity omissions
Open-FF found 152 Montana wells with records that do not report quantity data.
Oasis Petroleum: Omissions of quantity data
Oasis Petroleum omitted quantity data in 278 FracFocus disclosures. We summarize the omissions in this…
Whiting Petroleum: Omissions of quantity data
Whiting Petroleum omitted quantity data in 539 FracFocus disclosures. We summarize the omissions in this…
Continental Resources: Omissions of quantity data
Continental Resources, Inc omitted quantity data in 1,382 FracFocus disclosures. We summarize the omissions in…
Water source summary added to state pages
State-focused pages now include a summary chart of the optional water source data
Montana fracking sand errors
Open-FF found 10 disclosures with distorted sand and water percentages in Montana by 4 operators.
Montana: all years of FracFocus
Monthly number of disclosures
Typical water use
Recent water sources
Please note that an Open-FF analysis of FracFocus water source data in Dec. 2024 found several concerning sources of inconsistencies and errors.
Operating companies
Click Here for more about Operators in Montana.
Trade Secrets
Background
What is FracFocus? What is Open-FF?
FracFocus serves as the collector and manager of fracking chemical disclosures of the oil and gas industry. It delivers published disclosures to state regulators and it operates a website to help the public see those disclosures and offers a bulk download of the disclosure data. While it started in 2011 as an experiment, disclosing to FracFocus is now required by many states.
Open-FF, which is the project associated with this web site, is independent of FracFocus, the industry and state regulators. Open-FF adds to the FracFocus data to correct errors and reduce ambiguity, calculate chemical quantities and provide perspective. Data, code and tools generated by Open-FF are open source and available to everyone. Development on Open-FF began in 2018. The FracTracker Alliance has sponsored Open-FF maintenance and development since 2023.
How Open-FF improves access to fracking chemical data
Cleaning, curating, and organizing the data to produce a value-added data set. This set includes the original FracFocus data along with features generated by Open-FF that calculate masses, flag errors, identify trade secret claims, link to hazard information and more. These data sets are currently updated monthly and we provide summaries of new disclosures.
Providing an online data browser that offers perspectives on specific chemicals, companies and locations without downloading or coding. For example, using this tool, users can quickly see (a) where a company is operating and its pattern of trade secret use, (b) how many times a specific chemical such as ethylene glycol has been used and its hazard profile and (c) what is the pattern of fracking within a given state.
Producing reports of data errors and omissions. These reports outline specific problems we have discovered such as massive misreporting of water use. We try to inform companies of the issues so that they can correct them. We are currently planning a series of error reports on issues such as sand-dominated disclosures, duplicated records, and inconsistent mass reports.
Resources
- Open-FF Browser – Explore FracFocus data in depth by chemical, company or geography without downloading
- FracTracker – Find a wealth of maps and other data about all wells in Montana, not just those in FracFocus.
cover art by Becky Mansfield (modified by author)