14-01-04 Energy producers taking advantage of higher oil and natural gas prices are drilling more new wells in Oklahoma than at any time in the last 15 years, energy regulators say. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission issued 5,119 drilling permits to oil and gas producers last year, the most in a year since 1988, the commission said.
"It's the best environment for our business in 20 years," said Mickey Thompson, president of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. The number of permits is still well behind the state's record year, 1981, when regulators issued 22,685 permits as the oil boom peaked and oil prices were more than $ 30 a barrel.

Tight supplies and increased demand have sent prices of gas and oil up in the last year, and they are expected to remain high for some time before softening, analysts say. Oklahoma natural gas prices averaged $ 4.42/mm Btu in the first eight months of 2003, up from $ 2.65/mm Btu during the same period in 2002, state figures show.
Oklahoma oil averaged $ 30.43 per barrel during the first eight months of 2003, up from $ 18.21 a barrel during the same period in 2002, the state says.

Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy, the top producer of Oklahoma gas, was the most active driller in the state last year by a wide margin, spending more than $ 500 on new drilling projects in state fields.
"We have expectations that prices are going to stay at historically higher levels," said Chesapeake spokesman Tom Price.

Oklahoma, the US's third-largest gas producing state, has several trillion cf of proven gas reserves, the US Department of Energy says.
"A great deal of this state is unexplored at significant depths," Price said.

Source: AP