A Pipeline Runs Through It. By Keith Fisher. Allen Lane; 768 pages; £35
IN 1908 DRILLERS working for Weetman Pearson hit a gusher. Pearson, a British industrialist, had done a deal with the anti-American government of Mexico for a 50-year oil concession that covered much of the state of Veracruz. From a depth of 1,830 feet (558 metres), the Dos Bocas well exploded into a broiling fountain of oil that rose 1,000 feet into the air.
The ensuing fire raged uncontrolled for 57 days, spilling more than 10m barrels of oil and leaving a toxic environmental legacy that persists today. A geologist at the site observed: “What had been lush monte [bush] was now a gaunt spectre of dead trees. The air stunk with the smell of rotten eggs. There was no sign or sound of animal, bird or insect life…It smelled and looked like I imagined hell might look and smell.” The oilfields opened up by this catastrophe were so prolific and profitable that they became known, apparently without irony, as the “Golden Lane”.
As Keith Fisher shows in “A Pipeline Runs Through It”, a sprawling, painstakingly researched history of oil from the Palaeolithic era to the first world war, black gold has been as much a curse as a blessing for the people on whose land it has been found. Oil has always been a dirty business, both literally and metaphorically.
Mr Fisher begins with a slightly plodding survey of the uses found in bygone eras for the different kinds of oil that seeped from the ground. It was an adhesive for toolmaking, a waterproofing agent for boats and roofs, a medicinal cure and a lubricant. The Byzantines chucked a napalm-like substance, known as Greek Fire, over the walls of besieged cities. The book gets into its stride when it reaches the late 18th century. Then the extirpation of Native American nations paved the way for the development, just over 50 years later, of the “oil region” of Pennsylvania and New York states. It was there that large-scale industrialised oil production first occurred.
The soaring demand for oil was driven mainly by its use for lighting (after being refined into kerosene). It burned cleaner, brighter and with less smell than other oils, such as those derived from coal or whales. The oil rush began in 1859 along what became known as Oil Creek, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, when an entrepreneur called Edwin Drake became the first American to drill for oil successfully. As wildcatters rushed to the region, small refineries started popping up all over the place. Railway companies cashed in by providing the only route to market until pipelines, which required large amounts of capital, could be constructed.
Into this Wild East of desperate competition—and prices that fluctuated madly as capacity grew either too fast or too slowly—stepped John D. Rockefeller, whose Standard Oil set out to control the industry through a process of “combination”, or monopolisation. Such was Standard’s financial muscle and legislative clout that competitors sold it their assets before being driven out of business. By controlling pipelines and refineries, Rockefeller could also dictate terms to producers.
There will be blood
Standard’s grip on what was rapidly becoming a global market triggered a response from European colonial powers, which saw the dangers of becoming reliant on imports from America or Russia. With no less violence or ruthlessness than their American counterparts, they set about exploiting existing and newly acquired colonies to correct the imbalance. The British turned to the Indian subcontinent and then to Persia, the Dutch to the East Indies.
The most intense competition was between Standard, as it sought concessions in the Far East, and the emerging behemoth, Royal Dutch Shell. Nowhere was the pursuit of oil bloodier than in Aceh at the northern tip of Sumatra. In 1896 Dutch forces were sent to open up the area for exploitation through “merciless chastisement” of the local population. Atrocities in Aceh became routine. Over the next 40 years up to 100,000 Acehnese would be slaughtered for the sake of oil. Hendrikus Colijn, an officer with a well-earned reputation for brutality, described his approach to his work in a letter home to his wife:
I saw a woman, with a child about half a year old in her left arm and a long lance in her right hand, charging towards us. One of our bullets killed both mother and child. From then on we could grant no more mercy. I had to gather together 9 women and 3 children, who were begging for mercy, and they were all shot. It was unpleasant work, but there was no alternative.
These horrors did not harm Colijn’s career. He became head of Royal Dutch Shell and prime minister of the Netherlands.
By the beginning of the 20th century, with both the refinement of the internal-combustion engine and the realisation by the navies of the great powers that their ships could go farther and faster with boilers fuelled by oil rather than coal, reliable access to oil in times of war became a major security concern. Mr Fisher writes especially well about the maniacal drive of Admiral “Jackie” Fisher (no relation) to shift the Royal Navy from coal to oil propulsion with the backing of Winston Churchill, at the time the First Lord of the Admiralty. To ensure that the great Dreadnought battleships could still rule the waves, in 1914 the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly for the “socialist” solution of nationalising the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (which would later become BP).
It was in the nick of time. A few weeks later Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo. More than a century on, and despite faltering attempts to stall climate change through decarbonisation, the war in Ukraine is a reminder of the world’s continuing dependence on oil.
This book has its faults. At times the narrative is overloaded with detail, and the author seems reluctant to flesh out the many extraordinary (and rapacious) characters who populate the story of oil. But it is nevertheless a compelling read, crammed with eyewitness accounts, and an immensely valuable guide to a great and terrible industry.
By The Economist
