This report, the 18th based on data gathered by the Committee on Statistics of Exploratory Drilling, is the twenty-seventh annual summary on the subject published in the Bulletin. Frederic H. Lahee prepared this statistical analysis and wrote the annual article for twenty consecutive years. Graham B. Moody prepared the report for exploratory drilling for 1956, and B. W. Blanpied prepared it for 1957, 1958, and 1959. The report was prepared in 1960 by the senior author of this report and the chairman of the committee. One of the committee members served as a co-author in 1961 and again in the preparation of this year's report.

During 1962, 10,797 exploratory holes were drilled in the United States; 1,982 of these produced some oil or gas, representing 18.36% of all exploratory effort. There were 6,794 new-field wildcats, 787 of which produced some oil or gas, representing 11.58% of all new-field wildcats. New-pool tests (including new-pool wildcats, deeper-pool tests, and shallower-pool tests) for 1962 totaled 1,903 holes, 537 or 28.22% of which produced some oil or gas. There were 2,100 outposts; 658 of them, or 31.33%, produced some oil or gas.

The total exploratory footage drilled in the United States in 1962 was 53,615,888 feet in the 10,797 holes, or 4,966 feet per hole. These figures compare with 54,442,127 feet drilled in 10,992 exploratory holes, with an average depth of 4,953 feet in 1961.

For the fourth time we are presenting data on natural gas reserves in the 17-States Area by years, for discoveries having six years or more of development history.

Only about 2.6% of all new-field wildcats discover a profitable field although 11.6% produced some oil or gas.

For the fifteenth time, we are presenting data on Canada and Mexico.