I used to work on software that did economic forecasts for oil and gas projects, i.e. figuring out which ones it would be economic to develop. At the time, I wa

I used to work on software that did economic forecasts for oil and gas projects, i.e. figuring out which ones it would be economic to develop. At the time, I was surprised to learn that this kind of software wasn't used much in the Middle East. The reason given was that it didn't matter much where you drilled ("oil comes out of the ground everywhere there"). Instead, it was used in a lot of places you wouldn't necessarily think of as major oil, like the US and China (as well as more obvious ones like Canada and Venezuela). Such analyses become more important as oil becomes harder to get out of the ground.