Wow...how much does it take to produce a bbl of oil? Same old endless discussion/debate. First, lets get rid of the inflation of the $. Obviously if comparisons are being made over significant spans of time it has to be factored in.
Now the almost impossible # to come up with today: the industry is drilling as I type. Company X drilled 20 wells in the last 12 months and found 1 million bbls while spending $10,000,000. Company Y spent $100,000,000 to find the same million bbls. So $10/bbl vs $100/bbl. So easy call: just produce a list of every oil exploration company in the USA/world and how much they spent drilling wildcats for over the last 12 months and EXACTLY how much oil those wells discovered. I say EXACTLY because that is often a very difficult number to come up after the discovery well. And as those companies are providing all that propriatary data get the amount the spent drilling and completing. Hmm, what about over head costs?
And now there's Company Z that spent $10,000,000 to find the same 1 million bbls Company X found. But Company X is in West Texas and its well is flowing on its own. Company X's well is in the GOM in 7,000' of water and cost $40,000,000 for the floating platform the well was drilled from.