Black Gold — The Century in Which Oil Moved Nations

When we fill up at a gas station, we rarely give it much thought — that this single drop was formed underground over hundreds of millions of years, carried from the far side of the planet, and reached us after slipping through the calculations of countless people, vast corporations, and nations. Oil was never merely a fuel. It drove cars, flew aircraft, served as the raw material for plastics and chemical products, and was the force that ran the whole of the twentieth century. And it was a black liquid that was at once a blessing and a tinderbox — generating wealth while it swayed the fates of nations and sat ceaselessly at the heart of war and diplomacy.

Striking the Black Liquid — The Birth of the Oil Industry

Oil itself had been known since ancient times. Oil that seeped to the surface was used here and there, in small ways, as fuel for lamps and as material to fill in gaps. But the idea of pumping it up from underground in bulk and turning it into industrial fuel did not begin in earnest until the mid-nineteenth century.

The turning point is held to be an event in 1859 at Titusville, Pennsylvania. Edwin Drake is reported to have succeeded in pumping oil from the ground by applying the drilling techniques of salt wells. His original aim was to obtain the raw material for kerosene, then coming into wide use. As a cheap fuel for light to replace whale oil, hopes for oil were rising. Drake’s success set off a frenzy of oilfield development, and Pennsylvania’s output is said to have grown explosively within a few years.

The man who swiftly consolidated this fledgling industry was John D. Rockefeller. The Standard Oil he is reported to have founded around 1870 brought refining and transport under its control one after another, and is said to have grown into a giant company that came to hold most of America’s oil refining. Its monopolistic methods later drew fierce criticism, and in the early twentieth century it is reported to have been ordered broken up — but Rockefeller had proven, earlier than anyone, that oil was an industry that generated immense wealth.

The Engine Craves Oil — The Age of the Automobile

What transformed the standing of oil, which had begun as the raw material for kerosene, was the arrival of the internal-combustion engine. Igniting gasoline inside a cylinder and using that force to drive a piston — this small yet powerful engine made possible nimble vehicles that the steam engine had found difficult.

Decisive was the automobile. In particular, the Model T that the American Henry Ford is said to have put on sale around 1908 held its price down through assembly-line mass production, turning the automobile from a toy of the wealthy few into transport for the masses. The roads overflowed with cars, and people could travel far at will. And the more cars there were, the more demand for the gasoline to run them swelled without end.

In the first half of the twentieth century, oil grew further in weight as a strategic material. Warship fuel switched from coal to oil, and neither tanks nor aircraft could move without it. Whoever held oil could command war and move nations — and as this awareness spread, the struggle over oilfields changed in form, going beyond rivalry among companies into the geopolitics of nations themselves.

The Seven Sisters and the Sands of the Middle East

In the middle of the twentieth century, the world’s oil was dominated by a very small number of giant Western corporations. These were the oil majors, later called the ‘Seven Sisters.’ These companies developed oilfields in producing countries and held everything from extraction to transport, refining, and sale, and are said to have controlled most of the world’s oil. Much of the profit went to the companies, while the share for the countries that produced the oil was limited.

The center of gravity shifted greatly in the Middle East. Some of the world’s largest oilfields lay beneath the Persian Gulf, and through the twentieth century this region rose to become the heart of the oil supply. But against the backdrop of memories of colonial rule and discontent with their limited share, the producing countries gradually sought to reclaim control. In 1960, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and others at the core, OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed, seeking a voice in price and production against the majors. The lead in black gold began to shift from those who consumed it to those who produced it.

The tension reached its peak in 1973. In the wake of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, the Arab oil-producing nations used oil as a weapon of diplomacy and tightened supply, and crude prices surged. This oil shock, which shook the world, struck the economies of the developed nations directly and made people keenly aware of the perils of dependence on oil. A faltering supply of a single resource was enough to bring all of society to a standstill — it was the moment that reality became plain to every eye.

Energy Becomes National Strategy

The oil shock engraved upon the world that oil was no longer a mere commodity, but a strategic material bound up with a nation’s very survival. Each country placed the stable securing of energy as its most important task, and strengthened its interest in diversifying supply sources and in energy beyond oil. It was through this crisis that efforts at energy conservation advanced, and that investment in nuclear power and alternative energy was spurred on.

What the century of oil taught is the fact that energy and power are inseparably bound. Which resource lies where, and in whose hands it rests — that sways the balance of power among nations and shapes the foundation of diplomacy and security. Just as fire, coal, and electricity had been, oil too was a force that drove civilization forward and, at the same time, a tinderbox over which people fought. The history of energy is, in the end, an endless story of how humanity — forever seeking greater power — comes to terms with that power.

And just as oil was moving nations, the means of making electricity was likewise growing vast in another form. Damming rivers, turning the drop of waterfalls into electric power, blanketing the land with transmission lines — the next story is the building of the electric state, raised up by dams and the grid.