AP Photo

Ingenuity is one way to describe the search for crude in deeper and deeper waters; another, equally apt, might be desperation. Once all-mighty, the large Western oil companies now control well under 10 per cent of the world’s known crude.

“Big oil never wanted to be here,” read the telling first line of a recent Wall Street Journal feature about the successful efforts of Chevron in very deep waters not far from BP’s big find.