You may have to define "cheaper" for some of these companies. Keep in mind the sunk cost fallacy and that every million dollars invested in 1960s money is abou

You may have to define "cheaper" for some of these companies. Keep in mind the sunk cost fallacy and that every million dollars invested in 1960s money is about ten million dollars in today's money. Some of these projects are so foundationally sunk cost to these companies that they might as well be load bearing sunk costs. The company doesn't think that it exists without those sunk costs, and the company doesn't think it could survive a second, similar spending program today, at least not without their shareholders pitching a fit in potentially lots of short-term quarters given current shareholder obsessively short-term thinking.