Oil drilling and seismic activity -just a coincidence?

First and foremost, my thoughts along with millions of others are with the people of Samoa, American Samoa and Indonesia who have been affected by the 2 earthquakes which occurred in the last 12 hours. Hopefully a fast response by international relief agencies will minimize the effects of these tragedies along with the devastation from the recent typhoon in the Philippines.

Current scientific consensus holds that in our solar system, only the Earth is geologically unstable. As far as I know, it is also the only planet where oil is actively being pumped out of the ground in ever increasing quantities from ever increasing depths. Earthquakes occur when opposing plates that make up the Earth's crust slip as they are squeezed up against each other. The number of seismic incidents is increasing on a year over year basis. Is there an 800 lb gorilla in the room that is being ignored?

I am not a geologist (though I lived with one for 5 years during college) but I have to ask the question; does removing ever increasing amounts of a non-self-replenishing, non-evaporating, non-compressible and viscous fluid located inside, below and between these plates effect the overall tectonic system? I don't know if the crude oil functions as a lubricant, a shock-absorber or simply a space occupier propping up the Earth's crust but the engineer inside me has to hypothesize that there must be some systemic consequences to its removal.

It is thoughts like this that can make you nostalgic for a simpler time when all we had to think about were things like melting polar ice caps and a hole in the ozone layer.