Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century »

Tom Bower has a distinguished reputation as an investigative historian, broadcaster and journalist, and is the author of several ground-breaking books about tycoons, politicians, intelligence and post-war Europe.

With unparalleled insight into BP and its safety record leading up to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Tom Bower gives us a groundbreaking, in-depth, and authoritative twenty-year history of the hunt and speculation for our most vital natural resource.

OIL

Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century

Twenty years ago oil cost about $7 a barrel. In 2008 the price soared to $148 and then fell to below $40. In the midst of this extraordinary volatility, the major oil conglomerates still spent over a trillion dollars in an increasingly frantic search for more.

The story of oil is a story of high stakes and extreme risk. It is the story of the crushing rivalries between men and women exploring for oil five miles beneath the sea, battling for control of the world's biggest corporations, and gambling billions of dollars twenty-four hours every day on oil's prices. It is the story of corporate chieftains in Dallas and London, traders in New York, oil-oligarchs in Moscow, and globe-trotting politicians-all maneuvering for power.

With the world as his canvas, acclaimed investigative reporter Tom Bower gathers unprecedented firsthand information from hundreds of sources to give readers the definitive, untold modern history of oil . . . the ultimate story of arrogance, intrigue, and greed.

Publishers Weekly

In this penetrating study of the modern petroleum industry, journalist and historian Bower (Outrageous Fortune) portrays the last 30 years as a time of both obscene profits and white-knuckle perils for the major oil companies. Having lost market share and pricing power to OPEC, government oil monopolies, and all-powerful commodities markets, Bowers contends, oil companies are locked in a desperate scramble for reserves, most of them located in unstable countries ruled by hostile potentates. He follows executives and engineers as they drill ever deeper under the sea for elusive deposits, brave Machiavellian negotiations with Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs, and kowtow to Hugo Chavez for access to Venezuela’s fields. They weather oil spills, refinery explosions, antitrust regulators, and global warming activists. Bower wallows overmuch in boardroom soap opera, but his analysis of the industry and its shocking price swings is a persuasive one that eschews conspiracy theories and peak oil alarmism to focus on rising demand for reserves that are plentiful but hard to get at. The result is an illuminating look at a business whose real workings are more interesting than the mythology surrounding them. (July)

Illustrations

Preface

1 The Emperor 1

2 The Explorer 15

3 The Master Trader 33

4 The Casualty 58

5 The Star 77

6 The Booty Hunters 91

7 The Oligarchs 115

8 The Suspect Traders 129

9 The Crisis 153

10 The Hunter 173

11 The Aggressors 203

12 The Antagonists 210

13 The Shooting Star 229

14 The Twister 243

15 The Gamble 266

16 The Downfall 283

17 The Alarm 304

18 The Struggle 313

19 The Survivor 326

20 The Backlash 343

21 The Confession 372

22 The Oligarch's Squeeze 396

23 The Frustrated Regulator 419

Acknowledgments 463

Notes 465

Index 475