When oil was US$9 per barrel, nobody wanted to drill wells or shoot seismic to find more. The service companies were going to the wall, the technology investment ended, the skilled people left in droves.

You could hire a drilling rig for less than US$100,000 per day, with full crew.

Now, you're lucky if you can find a rig that you can book a year in advance. Many drilling companies are skipping on contracts and taking higher bids.

A good deepwater rig is now almost in the million-dollar a day bracket.

Seismic boats and onshore crews are unobtainable.

Skilled specialists have raised their rates from something on par with manual labourers, to a real professional wage. That's IF you can find them. I could employ 4 specialists fulltime starting tomorrow, if I could find them. ANd next month I'd need another 2, and 5 more by the end of the year.

Governments are posting windfall taxes on all activities.

In short, the costs have gone through the roof.

Partly, the industry is paying back the debt it ran up in the 90's when it stopped exploring and told everyone they were on their own.

Partly, there is a huge cost in trying to rapidly expand an entire industry, starting from a small base, and at a time when "Oil" is a dirty word - most University graduates don't want to work in the industry.

And partly, the oil industry is competing with the Mineral industry, which is having its own boom, and started it sooner, and planned its manpower better.

If you want a steady, well-paid job, train as a specialist welder. They're like hen's teeth, or rocking-horse poo.

And the oil industry needs them to build platforms and rigs and seismic boats and pipelines and the mineral industry needs them to build draglines and process plant and railways and while we're at it, here in Western Australia, our school teachers and taxi drivers and office clerks are leaving for the mines to manage plant, drive dump trucks, and do all the admin.

The towns are deserted, except for Japanese backpackers who are staffing everything...