Less well-known is the extent to which General and Administrative (G&A) expense rose over that same timeframe. Benchmarking cost performance among North American upstream operators, SAIC found that average G&A cost per BOE rose from $3.32 in 2006 to $4.65 in 2008—a 40% increase. Using aggregate domestic oil and gas production as a guide, the increase of $1.33 in G&A cost per BOE translates to over $4 billion in lost profits in 2008 alone.