This statistic displays the number of oil and gas rigs worldwide by region and type, as of December 2017. At that point, there were 83 offshore rigs in the Asia Pacific region, while there were 130 on land. Oil and gas rigs can be operated on land or water. Oil and gas drilling rigs are machines that drill holes in the Earth in order to extract oil and natural gas.
Oil and gas rigs worldwide
Alternatively, oil platforms (or offshore platforms/rigs) are structures that do any of the following: drill oil and gas wells in the ocean floor, extract and process oil and gas, or store oil and gas for short periods of time. Offshore oil platforms also often house the crew that works on them. The highest global oil and gas rig counts by density in terms of offshore rigs occur in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, with 213 and 184 rigs respectively in those regions as of 2015. On land, the highest world rig count occurs in the Middle East, with 288 oil and gas rigs in operation there as of December 2017.
With the recent downturn in the global oil and gas industry, the number of oil and gas rigs in operation has been declining. With this decline in operation, a decline in oil and gas rig employment has followed. Decommissioning offshore oil platforms is on the rise as well, with costs projected to increase significantly in the next few decades.
