Oil companies have never enjoyed a good press.
Oil companies have never enjoyed a good press. The History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida Tarbell published in 1904 is widely acknowledged as one of the earliest and finest examples of investigative journalism. The book revealed the irrefutably unfair if not necessarily illegal business practices of John D. Rockefeller as he strove to establish Standard Oil as the behemoth controlling oil production, refining and distribution in the US. Tarbell’s work is credited as providing the catalyst leading to the break-up of the company as Congress introduced a number of anti-monopolistic trade measures between 1906 and 1911.
Trawling through the massive library of books written about the oil industry since, the majority tends to take a jaundiced view of its operations. Of course there has always been a steady trickle of more gung-ho books, in some cases deservedly, extolling the exploits and technology innovation involved in providing the energy source that has fuelled the world for more than a century.
Yet these are drowned by the relentless critiques, understandably so. The industry is a sitting target. We still live in a world dominated by oil and gas. Its strategic importance in the welfare of nations and the unimaginable wealth involved has led to much government and corporate malfaisance, not to mention outbreaks of war. It is no excuse that large global businesses like oil, pharmaceuticals, financial markets, automobile industry, aviation, Facebook, etc have all attracted their share of scandal.
The oil industry is unique, set apart in being an integral factor in power struggles around the world. Its leading corporate players are often key actors sometimes acting in unison with their government’s national interests, sometimes not. The Pullitzer Prize-winning Private Empire (2012) by Steve Coll is an astonishing exposé of the extraordinary power and influence of ExxonMobil around the world and in US politics, including its foreign escapades and interference, human rights violations, climate change denial, and handling of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Andrew Scott Cooper’s The Oil Kings (2012) is a timely reminder that Iran’s oil riches have long been a focus for Western attention. As far back as 1953, American and British governments organized a coup to oust the government of Mossadegh Mohammad (which in 1971 had nationalized the nation’s oil industry) and prop up the Shah of Iran. He in turn was abandoned in 1979 following a shift in favour of Saudi Arabia in the OPEC community. Today, emboldened by its new oil independence status, President Trump seems willing to stir the Middle East pot by aggravating Iran, something President Obama and President George W. Bush before him had been reluctant to do, partly because US oil supplies were still vulnerable.
It is no surprise that a new bestselling book provocatively titled Blowout (2019) takes a less than flattering view of the oil industry’s role in the world. It is the work of political commentator Rachel Maddow, who hosts her own show on the MSNBC channel in the US. On a suspiciously sexist note, some reviewers have referred to Maddow’s BA from Stanford (in public policy) and her doctorate from Oxford University (in political science) as though without these qualifications a female TV analyst would not be taken seriously.
In fact we should take notice of this book as a current example of the persistent demonizing of the oil industry, especially as it evidently resonates with a lot of readers, admittedly in this case mainly in the US. The subtitle of the book Corrupted democracy, rogue state Russia and the riches and most destructive industry on Earth provides a clue to its perspective.
In fact the book is far from original. This is clear from the generous attribution given to sources provided in chapter notes at the end of the volume. What Maddow has done over more than 350 pages is to cherry pick stories already told elsewhere about instances of greed, disregard for safety and the environment, corruption, incompetence and political interference that have from time to time discredited global oil and gas operations. She recounts these excesses in her distinctive breathless style, tinged with the odd flashes of ironic humour.
Her book starts rather entertainingly with President Putin in 2003 bizarrely taking time out of a state visit (when relations with the US were more friendly) to officially open the first US Lukoil gas station in Manhattan. The outlet has long since closed and an apartment building now occupies the site.
Maddow has resuscitated some other good stories, for example, an early exercise in fracking. In 1973 the now largely forgotten Rulison project and a follow-up experiment, both in Colorado, involved the underground detonation of nuclear devices (in the Rulison case nearly three times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb). The purpose of the explosions at a depth of over 8000 ft (2440 m) was to release the trapped gas, correctly believed to be trapped in the subsurface. Subsequently this sole venture into nuclear fracking, supported by the US Atomic Energy Commission, was scrapped due to radioactivity concerns and expense.
In this US-centric narrative Maddow threads together various obvious targets such as the ill-starred fracking in Oklahoma causing earthquakes at first denied: the outrageous corruption and extravagant spending of Teodorin Ngeuma Obiang, the ruler of Equatorial New Guinea, made possible by an oil bonanza; the BP Deep Horizon drilling disaster, Shell’s unfortunate drilling escapade in the Arctic, and of course the much earlier ruthless behaviour of John D. Rockefeller.
Her main beef is with Russia under President Putin, prompted by the suspected Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. She documents how the industry became the fiefdom (and cash cow) of the president and his pals and the cosying up to Russia by ExxonMobil under Rex Tillerson, subsequently a short-lived US Secretary of State in the Trump Administration. Putin’s internet plotting in favour of presidential candidate Donald Trump is ascribed by Maddow to a personal dislike of Hilary Clinton and more significantly to resentment at the US sanctions in the fallout of the annexation of Crimea which were stunting Russia’s oil and gas expansion ambitions.
She concludes: ‘It is easy to work up some proper indignation over the damage wrought by America’s biggest producers of oil and gas. They’ve managed to stunt developing countries on almost every continent and to prop up authoritarian thieves and killers . . . from Obiang to Putin. They’ve fouled oceans, gulfs, lakes, rivers and streams around the world. They’ve induced man-made earthquakes, strewn radioactive waste about the landscape; killed off family pets and farm animals, sickened schoolchildren; turned state governments into impotent little quisling servants that rip off their own people to make sure the industry gets everything it wants, and more. And that’s not even to consider the Big One: they are the chief drivers of the global climate catastrophe.’
This kind of hyperbole is really unhelpful because it is not backed up by any realistic solution. Puzzlingly, she writes: ‘The oil and gas industry . . . is wholly incapable of any real self-examination, or of policing or reforming itself. Might as well ask the lion to take up a plant-based diet. If we want the most powerful and consequential industry on our planet to operate safely, and rationally, and with actual accountability, well, make it. It’s not mission-to-Mars complicated either, but it works.’
Quite how accountability would work in the major oil-producing regimes of Saudi Arabia, Russia and many other countries where oil resources are state-owned is not explained.
The other fundamental flaw in books like Maddow’s is the consistent refusal to admit the enormous benefits that the oil industry has bequeathed on the world. In all the literature, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein (2014) is about the only upfront, unapologetic acknowledgement to be found of the value of oil and gas resources to our way of life and the necessity to continue their exploitation for the foreseeable future. It is not a masterpiece, but it at least provides a case for the defence that the oil industry with all its wealth seems incapable of mounting. Why we hate the oil companies by John Hofmeister (2010) also brings some balance from a former Shell executive.
Otherwise, in the vacuum of positive standpoints, ludicrous books such as Frackopoly by Wenonah Hauteur (2016) have found their way into print. Apparently a revered US environmental lobbyist, her recommendations on one side include: ‘Keep all fossil fuels in the ground; ban fracking and all associated activities including mining for sand and disposing of waste; restore strong protections in our commodities markets that prevent Wall Street speculators from profiteering and artificially driving fossil fuel production; and prevent energy and petroleum company mergers that accelerate environmental degradation, gouge consumers and allow fossil field companies to become even more politically powerful’. The antidote should come in the form of various calls for spending on clean energy and energy-efficient solutions. To which all can one say is ‘Good luck with that’ even if in the author’s view ‘it’s a matter of life and death’.
In looking for a measured description of the global history of the oil and gas industry, nothing has surpassed the monumental The Prize by Daniel Yergin (1991), most recently published with an epilogue in 2009, which should be read alongside his subsequent book The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World (2011). These works may lack moral judgment, but at least they accurately describe the intersection between the oil industry and government, the stakes involved, and what motivated the key players. Others such as Tom Bower’s Oil: Money, Politics and Power (2009) and Maddow’s contribution have tried to update the story but with none of Yergin’s depth of research and authority.
‘We should take notice of this book as a current example of the persistent demonizing of the oil industry.’
‘The other fundamental flaw is the consistent refusal to admit the enormous benefits that the oil industry has bequeathed on the world.’
