Quest for Oil, the Maersk oil game that puts players on a drilling rig
Quest for Oil is a free real-time strategy game Maersk released in June 2013 to explain drilling and oil production. Its web address no longer loads in November 2026.
Updated
What Quest for Oil is
Quest for Oil is a real-time strategy game that Maersk released in June 2013 as a free game for players worldwide. The Maersk oil game was developed by Serious Games Interactive in Copenhagen and draws on two Maersk units in the upstream oil sector, Maersk Drilling and Maersk Oil. Maersk is a global conglomerate with transport and energy businesses, and with the game it set out to open the oil business to everyone. A gCaptain report on the launch described a free PC game made to educate people about oil production, with the possibility of attracting new talent.
A round begins with choosing a drilling rig by comparing its characteristics and price. The player learns to read the layers of the earth and detect oil reservoirs, then marks where to drill and controls the drilling itself. The aim is speed without accidents, with warnings flagging a possible blowout or a pressure differential. The rig in the game stands for 53,000 tonnes of steel driven into the ground.
Production comes next. The player chooses a production platform and releases oil from the reservoir rock by injecting water and natural gas, where getting the pressure right is decisive. The last choice is how to transport the oil to a refinery. A digital opponent competes throughout, and the better analysis wins. According to gCaptain, Maersk Oil and Maersk Drilling contributed their industry experience to the game. Several test runs with students found them keen to explore, and some pointed to the visual cross-section of the earth's layers as what made the biggest impression.
What is true today
The address of the Maersk oil game no longer works. questforoil.com, the address given at launch, does not load in November 2026. The developer is still active at seriousgames.net, a company site that describes it as a maker of educational and serious games and offers digital, blended and physical formats. Its current case list includes a different Maersk project, a recruitment game called License to Recruit, and has no page for Quest for Oil.
No page found says why the game's site is gone or whether the game was withdrawn, so its status stays unconfirmed.
Questions about Quest for Oil
Is Quest for Oil still playable?
Playability cannot be confirmed. The game's launch address, questforoil.com, no longer loads, and the developer's current case list has no page for it.
Who made the Maersk oil game Quest for Oil?
Serious Games Interactive in Copenhagen developed it for Maersk, which released it in June 2013 as a free game.
What does a player do in Quest for Oil?
The player picks a drilling rig, finds a reservoir by reading the earth's layers, drills while avoiding a blowout, then sets up production and chooses how to ship the oil to a refinery.