Oil and Gas Drilling in US in 2Q09 Fell 46% from Year Before
greencarcongress.com
15 July 2009
Oil and gas drilling in the US in the second quarter of 2009 fell 46% year-on-year to an estimated 8,038 oil wells, natural gas wells and dry holes, according to the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Quarterly Well Completion Report: Second Quarter.
This activity corresponds to levels in 2003-2004.
The estimated number of second-quarter exploratory oil and gas wells drilled plunged 63% from 2008 to 336 wells, while the number of second-quarter development oil and gas wells slipped 46% to 6,761 wells in 2009, the report found.
While natural gas continues to be the primary target for domestic drilling, with an estimated 4,225 natural gas wells completed in the second quarter of 2009, activity was down 43% from 2008’s second quarter, the most severe quarterly decline this decade.
Oil well completion activity, meanwhile, continued to subside, with total estimated oil well completions in second-quarter 2009 falling 53% below year-ago levels.
API also reported total estimated footage of 48.1 million feet drilled in the second quarter of 2009, a 53% decline from second-quarter 2008.
The US drilling decline that began last quarter in connection with the current downturn in economic activity has continued in earnest in the second quarter of 2009 as companies proceed with caution in an uncertain year.
—Hazem Arafa, director of API’s statistics department |
