After a challenging 2020, the oil and gas demand recovery – supported by vaccination efforts and OPEC+ supply cuts – is proving good for drilling activity. Rystad Energy expects around 54,000 wells to be drilled worldwide in 2021, a 12% increase from 2020 levels. In 2022 drilling is set to increase even more, by another 19% year-on-year to about 64,500 wells, though activity will still fall short of the 73,000 wells drilled in 2019. Onshore drilling activity is expected to increase by 12% from the 46,000 wells drilled in 2020 to about 51,700 wells in 2021, before climbing by another 19% in 2022 to reach around 61,700 wells. Despite the increased activity, it still looks like drilling needs some more time to recover to pre-pandemic levels, as the onshore well count was nearly 71,000 in 2019. In the offshore segment, we expect drilling activity to increase year-on-year by about […]