In the 1950s, when Giant was hitting movie screens, global oil prices were largely controlled by the cartel known as the “Seven Sisters.” And at the start of the Cold War, these companies — which included predecessors ExxonMobil, Texaco and British Petroleum — were partners with the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western governments. Indeed, during this period, petropolitics was geopolitics, leading to interventions such as the Western-backed coup d’état, which overthrew the democratic government of Iran and installed the autocratic Shah of Iran in 1953 .
Over the next decade, Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries formed OPEC and demonstrated their collective power with the 1973 oil embargo against the United States and other allies of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. It was during this era in the world of television that JR Ewing hired a mercenary named BD Calhoun to blow up oil fields in the Middle East.
In the real world, however, foreign state capitalism prevailed over American-style private capitalism. Today, three-quarters of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by state-owned national oil companies. The largest, in terms of revenue, are two Chinese companies, Saudi Aramco of Saudi Arabia, Rosneft of Russia, Petrobras of Brazil and Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) of India. America, suffice it to say, does not compete.
“Today, three-quarters of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by state-owned national oil companies. »
The series Landman today, much like the replay of the Trump presidency, takes place at a time when high-tech hydraulic fracturing — the use of enormous quantities of water to extract “shale oil” and “shale gas” shale” — transformed the U.S. fossil fuel industry and the global marketplace. But geopolitics continues to dominate the oil sector. More than 80% of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by the 13 members of OPEC, which produce 40% of all crude oil and 60% of the world’s oil exports. And these OPEC members — as well as their broader OPEC+ group, created in 2016 — aren’t afraid to flex their muscles. After sanctions were imposed on OPEC+ member Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, China helped Moscow by replacing Saudi Arabia with Russia as its largest foreign source of crude oil.
At the same time, pipeline politics also remains geopolitics. Shortly after President Biden promised to “end” the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine, explosions rendered the undersea pipeline unusable in September 2022. Washington and NATO allied governments have claimed to be mystified; However, last August, The Wall Street Journal reported that the sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian saboteurs. Around the same time, the Chinese government claimed that a Hong Kong-flagged ship in the Baltic had destroyed a critical pipeline between Estonia and Finland. It was, needless to say, “by accident”. The late JR Ewing must be smiling somewhere. Trump, on the other hand, surely does not.
Because in addition to having to contend with state oil companies and the shifting alliances of our new Cold War, the incoming president can also expect resistance from within the oil industry and the world of commerce. investment. The American Petroleum Institute, the leading oil and gas lobby, opposes Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, including energy imports. Moreover, big oil companies, which depend on delicate international agreements, are unlikely to approve of Trump’s cowboy diplomacy, including his threat to impose tariffs on the EU if it fails to buy more oil and gas in the United States.
