So how hard is it to build an oil drilling rig? Some of the discussions here almost seem to assume that there are only a finite number of these things in the world and we'll never get any more. But I assume that more can be built, just like ships and locomotives and skyscrapers and other big, complicated objects. How many years would it take to build another twenty or fifty of these rigs?
For land-based conventional rigs, I don't think its a problem... but HO knows more about that than I do ....

However, for ocean (deep-sea) drilling, where so much of our anticipated conventional oil is slated to come from over the next few years, big rig availability is definitely in short supply. I had a Bloomberg link on this some weeks back but can't find it now.... The cost of renting an ocean deep-drilling platform was astronomical....

And now, with the hurricanes, the availability of this kind of ocean-drilling equipment is probably very limited now ... this makes it hard to put down roots in The Gulf of Guinea (West Africa) and offshore Brazil, among other places...
H, there's a post out front answering that question...