According to Baker Hughes Inc., which has tallied weekly U.S. drilling activity since 1940, domestic Oil and Natural Gas drilling rebounded sharply from the low point of 488 reached in late April 1999, following the oil price collapse of late 1997. In mid-2001, for instance, the U.S. weekly "rig count" approached the 1,300 mark. After that, the U.S. "rig count" fell, reaching 843 as of mid-October 2002, before rising once again, reaching 1,479 during the week ending November 11, 2005. As of November 11, natural gas rigs outnumbered oil rigs in the United States more than five-fold (1,232 to 241).
Historically, U.S. drilling activity peaked in 1981, with a total of 91,553 wells (43,598 oil, 20,166 natural gas, 27,789 dry wells) drilled in that year. For 2004, a total of 33,813 wells (22,673 natural gas wells, 7,167 oil wells, and 3,973 dry wells) were drilled in the United States, up from the low point of 18,465 total wells drilled in 1999, and also up sharply from the 25,744 wells drilled in 2002. During January-September 2005, total U.S. oil and natural gas wells drilled were up 21 percent from the same period in 2004.