Three feet that changed how energy moves

For years, Jon Farkas, a Chevron facility engineer, and his colleagues watched ships arrive at the Empire Terminal through the Mississippi River Southwest Pass. The terminal connects offshore production with refineries, pipelines, storage systems and transportation, making it an important link in the movement of oil through the Gulf Coast and beyond.

The route to the terminal offered 53 feet of water. The terminal berth where those ships docked to load crude offered 50. That three-foot difference limited how much cargo ships could take out of the terminal. That's because the heavier a ship is, the deeper it sinks in the water. Large ships would have to leave the terminal with less crude than they could carry at full capacity.

Employees had learned to work around the difference. But Farkas and Jacob Behm, a Chevron crude trader, wondered whether there was a better solution.

Their question led to a project that deepened the berth from 50 feet to 53 feet, a change expected to unlock an additional 522,000 barrels per month of throughput.