The higher the price of oil and gas goes, the better looking the crummy rocks are. Kind of like that last dance at closing time.

At this spring's investment conferences, the bulls were running, mostly spurred by the roaring success of shale plays, increasing drilling budgets and ever-rising production guidance.

But attendees were uniformly shaking their heads in wonder at the rise in oil prices. During Developing Unconventional Gas (DUG), sponsored on April 1 by this magazine and E&P, oil was about $102 a barrel. During the 36th annual Howard Weil event the following week, oil rose to nearly $111 a barrel. It rose to $119 at press time, up an amazing $ 17 per barrel in just three weeks.

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