all of that. but today shell essentially said that for all they've poured into this project they're better off just taking a loss. this is a huge turnaround for a corporate giant on one of the most environmentally sensitive issues in the country. and joining us now is jennifer dlouhy, energy reporter for the "houston chronicle." jennifer has been covering had. thanks for being here tonight. first of all, from your reporting, is this as big a deal, as big a turnaround for shell as it would seem, to spend all this money and then sort of throw up their arms and say all right, we're leaving? >> it's a tremendously big deal. it's not that often that an oil company invests $7 billion in a project and that one well determines its outcome and then they walk away. this doesn't happen that often. >> and how much more expensive is it to extract oil in arctic waters versus, say, the gulf of mexico which we hear about much more often? >> so the gulf of mexico has been under exploration and under oil development for decades, since the 1950s.