Check out the newest shale deposit now being drilled:
Estimates range from 3 to 7 billion barrels of recoverable oil plus natural gas in a area where a lot of infrastructure needed to get the oil and natural gas to market already exists!
You are not accounting for operating costs.
Still the present value (PV) of 500,000 barrels @ $29/ barrel, for 29 years, at 10% real interest is north of $300,000,000 smackers. You’d need HUGE maintenance and operating costs to make that investment unattractive.
Or the fear of unfavorable government intervention.
That is the price to put the hole in the ground. If you want to connect it to production, separate the oil, gas and water produced, pay the energy to run pump, pay the labor to keep all of that running, that is extra. Plus you need to pay the lease and exploration to find that next production or you are going out of business.
Palin: Drill baby drill
Obama: ahhhhh....errrrr....ummmm...can’t we just use Solyndra?