Wildcat drilling, a form of high-risk exploratory drilling, is the process of drilling for oil or natural gas in unproven or fully exploited areas that either have no concrete historic production records or have been completely exhausted as a site for oil and gas output.

This higher degree of uncertainty necessitates that the drilling crews be appropriately skilled, experienced and aware of what various well parameters are telling them about the formations they drill. The most successful energy companies are the ones with a very high rate of drilling success, irrespective of whether the wells are drilled in known areas of production.