The Color of Oil: The History, the Money and the Politics of the World's Biggest Business [Hardcover]

This book has vastly more impact on world commerce than columnists like Buckley, Goodman and Safire. -- Douglas Perret Star, Journalism Professor at Texas A&M University

Discusses the influence of petroleum and energy on civilization today and those involved in the oil industry. DLC: Petroleum industry and trade.

What was your motivation behind writing this book?

Economides: Well, first we really wanted to tell a story, pieces of which we have told many times. It is a story that needs to be told and has not been told before. We also wanted to bind together, in almost metaphysical terms, society and this particular industry because we think that the impact, influence and importance of petroleum on humanity are civilization-shaping. We wanted to stress the international side of the industry. We take this for granted and yet the fact that my co-author Ronald Oligney and I have worked in 72 countries, perhaps excessive even by oil business norms, is absolutely incomprehensible to all outside the industry.

Oil is not just black it affects all shades of life and industry. In fact it colors everything.

The first color of oil is green. The greenback, both literally and figuratively, has defined the value of oil. Today the petroleum industry is the worlds biggest business, and hydrocarbons (including coal) account for over 90 percent of all energy needs. The Energy Wealth and Poverty of Nations is the prevailing indicator at the turn of the millennium. Oil is black, and this, in contrast to the crystalline transparency of water, contributes to the great mystery often associated with finding and producing oil. Oil is red, white and blue with roots in northwest Pennsylvania and with the giant ghost and modern manifestations of John D. Rockefeller, no industry better exemplifies certain traits that define the American character. Red is also the color of oilas red as the blood of the millions who died in two great world wars and many other conflicts in this century. Central to the causes and prosecution of the wars was access to oil. The primary colors of oil today are money (lots of it), technology (basic but demanding) and people (special ones). The colors of the rainbow can be seen in the 100+ oil producing countries. There are a dozen large petroleum producing and exporting countries. Yet most have little in their history that links them to wealth, technology and management. Corruption among the elite and governments, mismanagement and the squandering of the petroleum wealth are endemic. Culture is everything, and no other human endeavor makes this as pointedly obvious as the world of petroleum. Government, willingly, by default or unwittingly, can turn oil from some of its more constructive colors to a tawdry yellow. Governments have infringed by regulation, neglected critical research needs and failed to take strategic and enabling actions. Environmentalism and the new green, couched in difficult-to-combat superficial imagery has taken a sinister turn, highly politicized and with gross disregard for the impact that the energy industry has on the world economy. Using moralistic yet blatantly dishonest slogans and pseudo-science, the environmental movement has digressed dangerously and has replaced some of the most radical movements for social experimentation of the century. One of the most fundamental truths rarely surfaces among the movement: there is no credible alternative to hydrocarbons in both the near and far foreseeable futures. The petroleum industry is here to stay and prosper in the third millennium. Energy demand will increase, and the use of petroleum will be emphasized and expanded. This is the color purple.

MICHAEL J. ECONOMIDES is University Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Houston. Until the summer of 1998, he was the Samuel R. Noble Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University and served as Chief Scientist of the Global Petroleum Research Institute (GPRI). Prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M University, Professor Economides was the Director of the Institute of Drilling and Production at the Leoben Mining Institute in Austria (1989-1993). From 1984 to 1989, Dr. Economides worked in a variety of senior positions with the Schlumberger companies, including Europe Region Reservoir Engineering and Stimulation Manager and Senior Staff Engineer, North America. Publications include authoring or co-authoring of 7 textbooks and more than 150 journal papers and articles. Economides does a wide range of industrial consulting, including major retainers by national oil companies at the country level and by Fortune 500 companies. He is the founder and a major shareholder in OTEK (Australia), a petroleum service and consulting firm with offices in four Australian cities. In addition to his technical interests he has written extensively in wide circulation media in a broad range of issues associated with energy and geopolitical issues.

RONALD E. OLIGNEY is adjunct professor and director of engineering research development at the University of Houston. Previously, Oligney held a number of technical and executive positions within the Texas A&M University System, including Adjunct Professor of Petroleum Engineering; Assistant Director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station; Director of the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute and Principal and Founding Director of the Global Petroleum Research Institute. Oligney is also former Vice President of a New York energy concern and the principal on-site negotiator for one of the first petroleum joint ventures in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. In 1991, he co-founded an environmental consulting and contracting firm in Australia. Today, OTEK Australia Pty Ltd. is one of the premier environmental service companies in all of Southeast Asia. Oligney has performed extensive technical, R&D and management consulting services for government, service companies and major and independent producers in Colombia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Oman, Venezuela, the West Indies and several states in the United States. Mr. Oligney has been advising various parties in Washington DC regarding the current energy situation. Prof. Oligney has written for numerous newspapers and specialized publications, including the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Business Journal. He is the co-author of the newly released book, The Color Of Oil. He lives in Houston with his wife and six children.