U.K. offshore oil and gas appraisal and exploration drilling so far this year is only 39 percent of 1998 levels with no significant new drilling activity reported in the week ending Sept. 29, consultants Arthur Andersen said. They said in their weekly Well Report that only two new exploration wells were spudded in northwest Europe during the week in review. "This has created little change in the difference between drilling activity in 1998 and 1999," Arthur Andersen said of total drilling in northwest Europe for the year to date.
The number of active oil and gas rigs operating in all sectors of northwest Europe during the week in review totaled 36. There were 19 wells drilling in the U.K. sector, 10 in Norway, three each in Denmark and the Netherlands and one in Ireland.