North America: US activity is unprecedented
For overall drilling activity in 1981, North America is expected to post a 20.9% increase over 1980 figures for a total of 90,347 wells. The growth is due solely to a 28.6% increase in US activity; Canada and Mexico show declines of 31.3% and 7.8%, respectively. Mid-year reports for the US included 36,776 wells, 7078 of them gas wells; of 7526 wildcats, 840 were gas-productive. The success rate for mid-year was 25.5%. The downturn in Canadian activity reflects the decrease in investments caused by the restructuring of the Canadian industry. Exploration is continuing, however, particularly in the east coast offshore region, the Beaufort Sea, and the Arctic Islands. The outlook in Mexico is highly promising: new fields are being discovered regularly in Campeche Bay, the Mesozoic region of Tabasco and Chiapas, the Sabinas Gulf region, and Chicontepec Paleocanyon. Since 1976, Petroleos Mexicanos has successfully reduced natural-gas flaring to less than 2% of production. Gas production increased by 22% in 1980, reaching 3.723 billion CF/day by December. Other drilling activity occurred in the West Indies and Caribbean Sea and parts of Central America.
- OSTI ID:
- 5558531
- Journal Information:
- World Oil; (United States), Vol. 193
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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