Over 670,000 new oil and gas wells forecast through 2020

DW’s recently published "World Development Drilling & Production Forecast" said that while more than 79,000 oil and gas development wells had been drilled in 2013, their number would have to exceed 106,000 in 2020, by which time a 17% growth in global oil and gas demand is expected.
“As the easiest-to-access oil and gas reserves deplete, each year we have to drill more and more wells for less and less production per well. Over the period, numbers of development wells drilled need to grow 35% to enable oil and gas production to meet an expected demand growth of 17%,” said DW's chairman, John Westwood. “This effect is most marked onshore, where by 2020 we expect production to grow by 15%, whereas offshore production should grow at 21% due to developments in deep water.”
Matt Cook, the DW geologist who leads the extensive drilling and production modelling programme, added, “In 2013, 113 deepwater oil and gas development wells were drilled, but by 2018 this number should reach over 400; meanwhile, production will grow from 6 mboe/d to 9.5 mboe/d.”
Individual countries are facing very different situations. Speaking about Norway, DW’s Andy Jenkins commented, “After several years of decline, oil production in Norway is expected to slightly increase by 2020. This will be led by improved recovery from existing fields and greenfield projects such as the Goliat and Johan Sverdrup fields. DW-forecast gas production will increase to 1.95 mboe/d from 1.84 mboe/d off the back of substantial investment and a number of planned projects in the Barents Sea. Such redevelopments will see the number of well completions sit around the 200 mark into the 2020s.”
Senior analyst Matt Loffman, highlighting the United States, commented, “Driven by onshore unconventional liquids production, the US has gained approximately 2 mb/d crude in addition to almost 0.5 mboe/d of gas in the past two years. As rigs are focused on oil-targeted wells in the future, onshore oil well completions are set for a 36% increase by 2020.”