For the past few years when the cost of oil was low, oil companies needed to keep some amount of trained workers in work. So what they've been doing is "starting" wells and then stopping the drill a safe distance, to leave everything in a state where they can tap the well in a short period of time to respond to prices. (Though I don't really have any knowledge of the actual scale, since it's just from talking to people where they're going/gone after leaving the Nuke program) Which is where some of that boom is from, since right now OPEC is struggling to control production to raise prices.