The oil-and-gas well BP PLC BP 1.21 % is drilling here in the Texas Panhandle looks ordinary enough from the surface. Yet a mile-and-a-half underground, horizontal pipes shoot off for at least a mile in three directions, like a chicken’s foot. The idea, part of an experiment by BP executive David Lawler, is to make three wells from one. It also is designed to help turn the London-based energy giant into a shale-oil innovator that can better compete with the entrepreneurial outfits that pioneered the business of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Big oil companies like BP are in need of a jolt. The multibillion-dollar projects they specialize in—giant offshore oil rigs and gas-export projects—are often prohibitively expensive in a world of $40-a-barrel oil. U.S. wells are a tempting option, but major oil companies […]