Although (sadly) MDN does not have access to the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Quarterly Well Completion Report, we do have the high level takeaway from the first quarter 2013 edition: oil well completions are up 20%, and natural gas well completions are down 26%.
There’s a pretty simple equation at work: Low commodity price = less drilling = fewer completions. When the commodity price of natural gas is low, drillers slow down or stop drilling (as reflected by lower rig counts), and the the less drilling they do, the fewer wells get drilled and completed. The (very) brief press release from API which contains a few interesting numbers:
