US oil firms pumping secret chemicals into ground and not fully reporting it
Source: The Guardian
Colorado oil and gas companies have pumped at least 30m lbs of secret chemicals into the ground over the past 18 months without making legally required disclosures, according to a new analysis.
That’s in spite of first-in-the-nation rules requiring operators and their suppliers to list all chemicals used in drilling and extraction, while also banning any use of Pfas “forever chemicals” at oil and gas sites. Since the transparency law took effect in July 2023, operators have fracked 1,114 sites across the state, but as of 1 May chemical disclosures have not been filed for 675 of them – more than 60% of the total, the analysis says.
Chevron, the world’s third-biggest fossil-fuel company by market cap, is by far the most serious offender, operating about 375, or more than half, of the non-compliant wells.
“We thought that the Colorado law was going to break through the culture of secrecy that surrounds the use of potentially toxic chemicals in oil and gas production,” said Dusty Horwitt, an attorney and researcher who was lead author on the analysis, which is based on public disclosures. “But the lack of compliance has left the secrecy in place, putting people’s health at risk.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/20/us-oil-firms-chemicals-colorado
Chevron is claiming that these fluids contain fluids which are "trade secrets" and therefore the responsibility for disclosure lies with their chemical suppliers.
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