SkyTruth maintains a database of chemicals that were reported by oil and gas drilling operators as being used in hydraulic fracturing operations. The database contains records for more than 27,000 frack operations from January 2011 through August 2012 in 24 US states.
We believe information like this should be freely available to the public for educational and research purposes, so we are making the entire database available online for anyone who wants to download it.
Notice: Due to recent changes at the FracFocus.org web site, Skytruth has not been able to acquire the latest data. We provide the data we were able to acquire through May 2013. To download what data we were able to obtain, click below.
Explore this dataset in an interactive map. Visit our friends at FracTracker.org.
Sorry, the map used Fusion Tables, which is no longer supported by Google.
NOTE: some reports contain inaccurate location information in the original report provided by the operator. That's why there are a few dots out in the middle of the ocean. We don't know the correct locations, so we left them where they are.
Download the entire dataset for your own research purposes.
See our Frack Chemical Data Download page.
Where do the data come from?
We acquire the data from the website FracFocus.org, which publishes voluntary fracking chemical disclosure reports produced by oil and gas drilling operators. We have cleaned up and reorganized the data, and we have filtered out a few records (less than 1%) where we either could not access or could not reliably extract data.
What's in the database?
The database contains details about each fracking operation: location, date, well depth, volume of water, as well as details about chemicals used in the fracking fluid including name, quantity, and Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number. However, the identifications of many of the chemical components included in the reports are withheld by the operator as "trade secret."
How Complete is it?
Unfortunately, the voluntary public disclosures available to us on the FracFocus website do not provide anything close to a complete disclosure dataset. We do not have reports for all the wells that have been fracked, and in the reports that we do have, many chemical components are explicitly withheld. We are currently researching the disclosure rate to try to estimate how much is missing. Stay tuned, or download the data and assess its completeness for yourself.
What does it cost?
Nada. Zip. Nothing.
Despite the fact that we have gone to considerable effort to compile this database, we believe that the best way to serve the public interest is to maximize the amount of research and education that can benefit from the availability of this dataset. So we're giving it away for free to anyone that wants to use it for those purposes. All we ask for in return is a tip o' the hat when you publish your report.
How do I get it?
You can view and download the entire data set from our Frack Chemical Database Download page. You can also find the dataset along with some great analyses and visualizations at FracTracker.org
What can I do with it?
You can use our dataset free of charge for any non-profit educational or research purpose. All we ask in return is that you acknowledge SkyTruth as the source of the data. You can load it into Excel or other spreadsheet software, filter it, add up the totals and make your own reports. Use the standard API Number that is assigned to every well to match up our data with other state data to see what interesting things you find (or don't find). If you're looking for ideas about what do do, email us at info@skytruth.org - we have lots of them!
You can validate our data by downloading the original disclosure reports from FracFocus.org, though you should note that sometimes the report PDFs are altered on FracFocus after they have been published. If you find one that does not match, please let us know !