The Oil Drum

The PBS Series based on "The Prize" was made in 1993, just after the first Gulf War. The final episode, which I have just watched, dealt with a look, from that time, into the future and the 21st Century. Some 13 years later it is interesting to watch that tape and see where we have, and have not, made progress.

The final episode dwelt much more on the impact of the oil economy on the environment than on the history of the industry, which was the original point of the book and the focus of the earlier seven episodes. A somewhat younger Jeremy Leggett discussed the threats that oil and the pollution that it caused held for the future of the world. (The burning oilfields of Kuwait provided a dramatic emphasis). White Knights was the only Western Oil Company drilling in Siberia, to help the Former Soviet Union bring back it's oil industry, one that was in truly bad shape. (And the cooperation of the native tribes of the Yamal Peninsula could be had for the price of 10 snow-mobiles. How times have changed !) And the then Chairman of Shell, the largest oil company at the time, promised that they would be around for a long time into the future. There was just one, almost missed, reference to the fact that, as American oil had peaked, so would world oil production. It came from the past President of ARCO, and was given no real emphasis in the program.