Deepwater Oil Starting to Hold Its Own With Shale: Chevron

Chevron Corp. is studding the ocean floor with heavy-duty pumping gear as part of an effort to make deepwater oil discoveries competitive with shale.

The idea is to force crude from newly drilled wells in the deepest parts of the Gulf of Mexico to flow through miles and miles of pipe to platforms built a decade or more ago, said Jay Johnson, Chevron’s executive vice president for upstream. By lopping off the billions it would cost to construct each new platform, offshore exploration begins to make economic sense again.