Senators grill oil company execs over huge profits...

[nate2512]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Some oil companies spend a lot on R&D to develop alternative fuels. Shell apparently has developed a technique to extract oil deposited in shale formations. It isn't cheap to build offshore drilling rigs.

The oil business isn't wildcatting anymore. It costs a lot of money to find a good well.

And they've also said that extracting the oil from shale is much too expensive to do it at this point, so they aren't currently expanding on that horizon.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by nate2512

And they've also said that extracting the oil from shale is much too expensive to do it at this point, so they aren't currently expanding on that horizon.

I don't know what the status of it is, but Shell a few years ago announced that they had developed a process whereby oil in shale formations could be recovered for ~$30/barrel cost.