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Show Drilling for oil-gas in 1977 at highest level since 1960 Wells drilled for oil and gas in the United States and completed in 1977 totalled 44,019, according to Petroleum Petrole-um Information Corporation, headquartered in Denver. The annual well completion total is the highest since 1960, when it was almost exactly the same as last year's, PI said. The statistics cited cover all U.S. activity through Dec. 30. The total for 1977 was 10.4, or 4.144 wells, greater than in 1976. Predictions at the end of 1976 called for an increase of about eight percent. per-cent. A larger-than-predicted increase was apparently due to accelerated expansion of the nation's total of drilling rigs and to the emphasis on exploration for and development develop-ment of natural gas prospects, where intrastate gas prices, not subject to regulation, provided significant economic incentive. During the year, an average of 2,003 rotary rigs were active on a month-to-month basis. Last year 10,506 new gas wells were completed, 18.5 more than in 1976 and 44 percent more than the total of 7,320 completed in 1975. Last year's drilling total included 18,821 wells completed complet-ed as producing oD wells. This compares with 16,927 comple-teu comple-teu in 1976, a gain of 15. And, 14,692 wells drilled in 1977 found no production and were abandoned. But the percentage per-centage of failures wasn't as high last year as in 1976...in fact, failures decreased by almost two percent. Pure exploration . . .wells looking for new fields... increased in-creased by 1.5, reversing a decline in new field wildcats in 1975 and 1976. And. 18.5 of new field wildcats resulted in some sort of discovery. This was slightly higher than the 1976 success ratio of 18.1 per cent. A total of 582 new Geld oil discoveries and 598 gas discoveries resulted from the 6,387 new field wildcats drilled. dril-led. Altogether, 1977 drilling accounted for 203.85 million feet of hole, up from 185.30 million feet in 1976. The gain, just over 10 was slightly less than the gain in total completions. Consequently, the average total depth of wells drilled last year was slightly less than the average for 1976. The decline was 16.7 feet per well to an average for the year of 4,630.9 feet. However, How-ever, average depth of new Geld wildcats increased slight- ly- The average total depth decline was accounted for by increased activity in states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio where shallow drilling is characteristic. Among the states, Texas 1 was again the leader, with 15,122 completions representing represent-ing an increase of 7.6. Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, California and Ohio followed in that order. Biggest percentage gain in completions came in Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, where 1.357 completions comple-tions represented an increase of 66.9 over 1976. New Mexico gained 31.7 per cent, Wyoming 30.6, and Oklahoma 19.3 per cent as compared to the 1976 completion comple-tion record. Petroleum Information, a wholly owned subsidiary of A. C. Nielsen Company, North-brook, North-brook, Illinois, offers reporting report-ing services, data and data analysis services, maps, logs and technical exploration and engineering services to the petroleum and related industries. |