Arraya: You make a good, but incomplete point, in that you left out the part about the rapidly evolving and developing technology, specifically for the extraction of shale. I know for a fact that BP Whiting (in Indiana) is spending $5Bn on what amounts to a brand new refinery on site.
EMRE (ExxonMobil Research & Engineering) has been instrumental in pushing new extraction engineering techniques and systems into place as well.
I’m not a rah-rah oil guy, but I do work with a lot of their engineers (on blast mitigation) and I can tell you that they’re serious about the engineering and the technology. There is huge money here, as TG pointed out, and that will drive the innovation.