# The drilling bust: Pennsylvania spuds down 88% from 2008, and only New Mexico is back

Published 2026-11-07 · By Pushbuild · Data: [Oil & Gas Wells API: US, Canada, UK, Norway, Brazil, Australia](https://pushbuild.com/apis/oil-gas-wells.html)

**88%**The drilling bust: Pennsylvania spuds down · as of 2026-11-07

**Wells spudded (drilling started) in 2025 against each state's peak year: Pennsylvania down 88%, Kansas 84%, Colorado 84%, North Dakota 67%.** New Mexico's 1,995 spuds in 2025 are its most since 2006. California recorded 42.

| State | Peak year | 2024 | 2025 | 2025 vs peak |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| PA | 2008: 4,981 | 473 | 577 | -88% |
| KS | 2012: 5,957 | 1,492 | 933 | -84% |
| CO | 2008: 4,356 | 657 | 707 | -84% |
| ND | 2014: 2,667 | 971 | 877 | -67% |
| CA | 2014: 3,836 | 336 | 42 | -99% |
| NM | 2006: 2,065 | 1,945 | 1,995 | -3% |

## Caveats

Only states that publish spud dates are included; Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio and others do not. Wyoming's public layer stops in July 2022. 2026 is not complete. California's low count is what its WellSTAR records hold. The CSV has every state by year from 2000.

## Sources

- [Railroad Commission of Texas](https://www.rrc.texas.gov/), read through the Pushbuild [Oil & Gas Wells API](https://pushbuild.com/apis/oil-gas-wells.html) on 2026-11-07

Data as of 2026-11-07. Every figure in this post is in the table above and the CSV below.

Download the data behind this post: [liquor-wells-spuds-by-year.csv](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/data/liquor-wells-spuds-by-year.csv)

## Get this data

Every number in this post comes from the [Oil & Gas Wells API: US, Canada, UK, Norway, Brazil, Australia](https://pushbuild.com/apis/oil-gas-wells.html). $0.0008 per row returned; every key gets $1 of free usage each month.

```
curl -X POST https://api.pushbuild.com/oil-gas-wells/run \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"maxItems": 20}'
```

[API docs and key](https://pushbuild.com/apis/oil-gas-wells.html)[More analysis from this data](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/api/oil-gas-wells/)Embed this chart

Free to reuse with the credit link. Paste this HTML into your page, or use the [SVG file](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/oil-gas-drilling-spuds-by-year/chart.svg).

Want a table like this in Google Sheets, refreshed on demand? Free script: [copy a web table into Google Sheets](https://pushbuild.com/free/scripts/website-table-to-sheets/).

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Header photo: [Declan M. Martin](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunniland_Oil_Field_preserved_pumpjack.jpg), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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As of 2026-11-07. Source: https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/oil-gas-drilling-spuds-by-year/