2Q rise in US drilling followed 1Q drop, API says

US oil and gas drilling reversed course and rose 38% year-to-year in the second quarter following a 22% decline in 2010’s first three months, the American Petroleum Institute reported.

July 19, 2010

Nick Snow
OGJ Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, July 19 -- US oil and gas drilling reversed course and rose 38% year-to-year in the second quarter following a 22% decline in 2010’s first three months, the American Petroleum Institute reported.

Well completions climbed from 2009’s second quarter to an estimated 10,358 oil wells, natural gas wells, and dry holes, API said July 13 in its latest quarterly well completion report. Total estimated footage reached 58.373 million ft, 16% more than a year earlier.

“As expectations for crude oil and natural gas demand have become more bullish, drilling activity has started to reverse its steep decline from the last five quarters,” said Hazem Arafa, director of API’s statistics department. “In 2010’s second quarter, the estimated number of exploratory oil and gas wells drilled jumped 35% from 2009’s second quarter.”

API said while gas has been the primary drilling target in the US for most of this decade, the pace of oil well completions has recently grown. During the second quarter, US oil well completions surged 59% year-to-year to 4,847. Gas well completions totaled 4,396, 22% more than in 2009’s second quarter, it indicated.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].