Name: Miles from nowhere: How deepwater changed the game for Chevron
Uploaded: 2014-06-09
Duration: 9 min 27 s
Description: Fortune gets an inside look at the life of Chevron's deepwater oil platform workers.

[ MUSIC ] The business unit that I'm in charge of is the Deep Water Gulf of Mexico. Our role is to manage all of the front in expiration through development of our deep water production discoveries. My dad was a pipeline welder. And they would build the gathering lines from all of the individual little fields and send them on to the refineries. So the oil field was in my blood. The biggest body of water I ever saw in West Texas was my aunt's swimming pool and now I'm 117 miles off in the Gulf. I've seen flying fish, I have seen whales, the whale sharks, pods of dolphin that are just massive. You know, I would have never ever, ever seen anything like that staying here. I gotta have two homes, I look at it. You know, I definitely have my home when I'm with my wife and with my family, and that's wonderful. I live my life there and I enjoy it, but I feel like out here I'm with friends. [ MUSIC ] Chevron was relatively late entrant into the deep water Gulf of Mexico. And we've been participating in every lease sale since 1995 and that. Built the portfolio that we have today. [ MUSIC ] The Gulf of Mexico basin has been receiving sediment from the Rockey's, from the Mississippi River, from the central core of the North American continent for over 100 million years. The shelf, geographically, runs fairly flat all the way out to about 300 feet of water. We put deepwater at over 1, 000 feet. And the 300 to 1, 000 is really just a steep slope. The Lower Tertiary is one of the older layers. And in fact, the Lower Tertiary, as we see it in the deep water, is full of sand. And so there's a deep water deposit out in the Gulf of Mexico of sand that is not present anywhere in the onshore environment. For a prolific petroleum basin, you need to have a reservoir rock. And these sands represent good porosity rocks for reservoiring oil. Current projects like Bigfoot is in 5000 feet of water. Jack St. Malo, is out in 7, 000 feet of water. Tahiti is in 4, 000 feet of water. Our deep water facilities have a lot of the same units. We have a separator at the front end, to separate oil, gas, and water. We have heaters, we have compressors and we have pumps. There's a complicated business from going from the subsurface oil field to eventually the marketplace. If you're 250 miles offshore in 7, 000 feet of water, you have to get from the oilfield to the sea bottom. To where we run into, what we call, sea floor architecture. Through flow lines to a floating production unit, which represents the ability to process and separate the hydrocarbons from water, from gas, and then you go back into pipelines that will take it to the marketplace. [ MUSIC ] My name's Jason Morehouse. I'm the operations supervisor on Tahiti. On Tahiti we produce about 68 thousand barrels of oil a day and each barrel is 42 gallons. We also produce about 33 million cubic feet of gas a day. Tahiti is very much a little city. The operators are in charge of the day to day process. So, making sure that the oil and gas and water are moving through our facility smoothly. We have out here a group of electricians. And a group of mechanics and what we call automation, which are kind of in charge of maintaining our machinery and our equipment. The things that don't have anything to do with oil or gas. The power or the water, things of that nature. Living here for two weeks out of every four. We're here day and night, 24 hours a day. You depend on each other a lot. Tahiti is very family oriented, believe it or not. You have your family offshore and you have your family on the beach. I waited to do this type of job until my kids were grown, but my husband understands that this is a means toward an end. My husband and I live in Houston, we're in a little bitty dinky apartment right now. We've just sold our home, and we're building a home south of Dallas, and that's where our retirement home is going to be. But I have a daughter and a son. They're both grown and have homes of their own, families of their own. We talk every day. When I go in and log onto the computer and he has sent me a text, he'll have heard a song that he records and sends to me. Sometimes it's a good song, sometimes it's that song that sticks in your head forever and you just want to call him back and kick him. You know, like, I've got a brand new pair of, oh just, you know. It's really irritating, but it's, you know, it's something that brings a grin to your face. [ LAUGH ] We were both oilfield brats, and so we know what it means to be gone for an extended period of time, it's the nature of the oilfield. [ MUSIC ] Home for me is my wife Robin who works at the Chevron offices. When I'm headed home I normally get home around two in the afternoon and my wife unfortunately works a full day, so the person I really wanna see when I walk through the door is never there. It's my two dogs. Great. [ MUSIC ] Jason and I have been married for almost eight years. He has been with Chevron for the entire time we've been married, yeah. We were in Houston for a few years and then we did some time in Norway, and we've been in Louisiana for about three and a half years now. With him being gone for 14 days, it requires me to plan a little bit better, got a few other responsibilities when he's gone. I'm able to take care of the things I need to, focus a little bit more on work. And then when he's home, we really value the time together. It makes you really realize how important that time is when he's gone for 14 days, the time home is even more important to us. [ MUSIC ] When I leave the house I, I have a very strict schedule that I live by. I'm very busy. I have guys out here to keep me company. She's got to now take care of all things that two people had to do before. Now just one person has to do. So, I give most of the credit to Robin. It's her, her strength and her ability to manage the challenges of just being at home alone. One of the things Jason and I do that's special between us is we, hide cards for each other and little gifts when he leaves. So one of the first hitches out I would hide a card and a little treat. In his bag, and then he does it now for me, as well. So he'll leave it on my sink, or on my computer, somewhere for me to find. Sometimes they have dogs on them, since we have dogs. But they're usually just kind of sappy. When I first get out here, the first thing I do is I go to my room and tear my backpack apart until I find my candy and my note. And I don't know if she does it at home, but I know it's something I look forward to when I come out here. [ MUSIC ] Every occupation has its ups and downs and work arounds and that's what we've learned, and everybody else has learned to work around. It's for some people and it's, some people just can't do it but we've been comfortable with it for 38 years so I think I'll stick with it for a while. The Gulf of Mexico, it still is a significant contributor to US energy production and the deep water has been replacing the shelf over the last decade as the shelf has declined. When you have global energy demand where we do, we have the global energy consumption where we're at, and the desire for improved quality of life globally. We're gonna need all forms of energy. It's hard to feel stuck when you go up underneath the heliport and you can see 360 degrees around and it's open sky and water. You see the most magnificent sunset, sunrises, even the storms coming. There is a part of it that is kind of exciting. You know, he's home for two weeks. You have a finite amount of time. I find myself trying to get as much Jason time in as I can. I miss people from shore, and that sometimes makes it, makes you wish you were home, but I never feel like I'm, I'm stuck here. We all are taking care of each other. It's a, exciting and dynamic place to work, and it's good at the end of the day to know that when you accomplish something you did it as a team working together. I taught my kids to be fearless. If you wanna try it, do it. Never regret something you did, regret something you did not do. [ MUSIC ]

Fortune gets an inside look at the life of Chevron's deepwater oil platform workers.