Oil wells are expensive to drill, and dry wells are a great concern to oil exploration companies. the domestic oil and natural gas producer aegis oil, llc describes on its website how improvements in technologies such as three-dimensional seismic imaging have dramatically reduced the number of dry (nonproducing) wells it and other oil exploration companies drill. the following sample data for wells drilled in 2005 and 2012 show the number of dry wells that were drilled in each year. anderson, david r.. essentials of statistics for business and economics (p. 473). south-western college pub. kindle edition.