Most oil rigs are on land units, not off shore. I worked on many for 14 years. One of the things people don’t know is an oil company has 90 days after the well goes live that they pay no royalty to the mineral right owner, be it the land owner or the country itself, to recoup the cost of the well. One well the consultant I was talking to had done, was a double leg well and cost 1.7 million from start to finish. They had it paid for in 75 of those 90 days, where afterwards they dialed down the amount coming from the well to pay the land owner less and keep it flowing for longer.
The last few years I was chasing the dragon we were doing a 2200-2400M well in 3.6 days. Day 4 we were moving onto a new location to start drilling a new one. Oil well drilling is not as expensive, dirty and cumbersome as you think.
Most oil rigs are on land units, not off shore. I worked on many for 14 years. One of the things people don’t know is an oil company has 90 days after the well goes live that they pay no royalty to the mineral right owner, be it the land owner or the country itself, to recoup the cost of the well. One well the consultant I was talking to had done, was a double leg well and cost 1.7 million from start to finish. They had it paid for in 75 of those 90 days, where afterwards they dialed down the amount coming from the well to pay the land owner less and keep it flowing for longer. The last few years I was chasing the dragon we were doing a 2200-2400M well in 3.6 days. Day 4 we were moving onto a new location to start drilling a new one. Oil well drilling is not as expensive, dirty and cumbersome as you think.