FRACTALS AND THE "BRITISH PETROLEUM": Side notes
Due to the catastrophe in the Mexican Gulf, the word
on the streets is the "British Petroleum". We, however, are willing
to continue our conversation not about the accident in the Mexican
Gulf itself, but rather about the most curious moments of transnational
capitalism history itself. While discussing the peculiarities of this
system — once dubbed the "world of shadows that is occasionally
lit by the beams of light" by a major Russian
politician — we might be guided by the definition
of such contemporary term as the "fractals".
Due to the catastrophe in the Mexican Gulf, the word on the
streets is the "British Petroleum". We, however, are willing
to continue our conversation not about the accident in the Mexican
Gulf itself, but rather about the most curious moments of transnational
capitalism history itself. While discussing the peculiarities of this
system — once dubbed the "world of shadows that is occasionally
lit by the beams of light" by a major Russian
politician — we might be guided by the definition
of such contemporary term as the "fractals". Fractal (from Latin
"fractus" — fractured) is a term introduced by Benoit
Mandelbrot in 1975 to describe the irregular and yet self-resembling
structures. Even the small part of a fractal contains the full
information about whole fractal.
Official history claims that in May of 1901 British aristocrat
William Knox D’Arcy — who succeeded at the gold-mining
in Australia — "was granted the approval of Persian government"
for the geological exploration and production of oil. A bit less
official version adds that the "approval" was obtained thanks to the
series of bribes to the corrupted Persian bureaucrats and noblemen,
crowned by the payment of £5000 (just for some out-of-pocket
expenses) to the Persian Shah himself, who was selling out the future
of the dependent country for the sake of his personal prosperity.
"Approval" actually meant concession — minor part for the needs
of local "leadership", a little bit — to the treasury and
the rest — to the Western shareholders — usual scheme for the
"Eastern expansion". At that time it was just the royalty —
nominal charge for the right to extract the natural resources — that
was left in the production country. Third-world countries took the
audacity to impose the tax for the concessionaire’s profits only
in the second half of the 20th century.
Some time ago, at the threshold of the prospective development
of the Iranian oil fields — oil was considered to be the
fuel of the future even then — D’Arcy needed the sponsors, and the
British fleet, standing at the verge of the world re-division —
needed the black oil. After the conversation with the British government
it was the Scotland-based "Burmah Oil" that funded D’Arcy — soon
it became the main shareholder of the newly-founded "Anglo-Persian
oil company". By the way, "Burmah Oil" was founded by a certain
gentleman whose last name was Cargill. We’d recommend you to enter this
name at the search system and look at the results.
Mr. D’Arcy himself passed away in 1917 but that didn’t affect business
much. On the verge of the First World War Winston Churchill —
big friend of all the colonial resources producers — induced the
British Cabinet of Ministers to buy the main share at the
"Anglo-Persian oil company". Refining facilities were passed to the
operating company, and then the "British Petroleum" petrol station network,
which was the leading one at the British Islands at the moment.
Actually it was an asset of the German "Deutsche Bank" that was
negotiating the Romanian oil via it, but with the start of the First
World War, it was quite naturally expropriated by the British
government and thus, the latter acquired the full-cycled oil production and
refining and extracted the profits for the corresponding manufacture.
In reality British government acted as functionary, serious gentlemen
with the private capital from the profitable companies haven’t ever
disappeared. All the more, during the period between the two world wars the
company that became the "Anglo-Iranian" one managed to achieve quite
significant successes, going with the times and thoroughly developing itself.
The twentieth century was the century of oil and the "seven
sisters" — seven leading Anglo-American oil companies, including
the BP as of right — profiteered on that rather
nicely.
By the way, it was the Italian post-war Prime Minister
Enrico
Mattei who introduced the phrase "seven sisters" — he quite
disliked these "sharks" and tried to defend Italy from them. Enrico died
at the airplane accident that — as it turned out
nowadays — took place because of the diversion. But even
10 years before the death of Italian Prime Minister, it was far
too patriotic Iranian Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddegh who paid a high price for his
counter-action to the "British Petroleum" interests.
We should note that the oil business, banking capital, venture investments
and the financial speculations represent the tightly intertwined teams
of the financiers, architects of the New world order established
after the Second World War. We may just glance at the biographies
of American and British political establishment in order
to figure out that it makes up an integral part
of this "business". Since the 1970s when the U. S. government headed
by Jimmy Carter and Anglo-American "business-pool" pulled a trick and
deprived dollar of the gold backing, "seven sisters", including "British
Petroleum" started to make decent money at the world-scale
money-from-nothing system that eventually led to the recent financial
crisis. Of course, they were simultaneously investing into the alternative
energy sources and the "Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan" oil-pipeline, for that
matter.
But since the 1980s — when the British authorities officially got rid
of their last BP shares — the main functions of the BP
seemingly included the accumulation of the oil industry assets.
In 1988 "British Petroleum" acquired Britoil, that was engaged in the
North Sea oil fields prospecting and inherited British National Oil Corporation
(BCNOC) in 1982 — it once used to be responsible for
the oil deposits of the United Kingdom. In 1987 "British Petroleum"
merged with Standart Oil — one of the "sisters", originated
by the Rockefeller family. BP gave up Amoco — another
"child" of theirs that was singled out in 1911 during the
short-termed U. S. authorities attempt to fight the monopolism —
in the end of 1990s when it became clear that it was not
the oil-production revival in the USA on the agenda of the day
but yet another Eastern colonization (starting from Iraq). In 2000 BP
bought ARCO with its Alaska assets. It also got the "Castrol" (heiress
of the "Burmah Oil" itself) — Cargill family has recently switched
to the genetic engineering at the rural area — and ARAL (former
German consortium with the developed oil production, refining and selling
infrastructure).
Though, since recently it turned out to be dangerous
to head this gigantic structure. British aristocrat John Brown, member
of House of Lords, Baron of Madingley, owner of several
scientific degrees and honorable titles, became a member of the huge
scandal a year before scheduled honorable retirement from the post that
he seated since 2001 (he became a member of House
of Lords the same year). Following the deaths of 15 workers
at the refining facility in Texas and the leak from the corroded
pipeline in Alaska, Brown attempted to lie during the story with
publication of his ex-lover’s novels. Due to the premature
resignation he was deprived of the annual bonus of £3.5 million
($7 million, 1.3 part of his annual salary) and the option for
acquiring the shares of maximum value of £12 million ($23.8)
in 2007-2009. He also had to leave his eminent positions
at the board of Goldman Sachs financial group.
He is probably comforted by the post of the Royal Engineer
Academy President and his salaries at Riverstone Holdings LLC, one
of the structures, profiteering from the energetic field.
Current top-manager Tom Hayward now also has the reason for premature
resignation. However, taking his positions at the Citigroup financial
group and the post at the Chartered Management Institute (recognized
British centre for the international management training) into consideration,
he would also find something to comfort himself with. He would
have to leave the much-talked-about "Bilderberg Group". However, there’s
already the constant representative of "British Petroleum" over
there — Peter Sutherland, company’s board chair, one of the Goldman
Sachs leaders and the head of London school of economics, who failed
to become a head of the Euro-commission in 2004. Still,
he used to be the head of the World Trade Organization
in 1995.
Current crisis, catastrophe at the Mexican Gulf and the show trials over
the Goldman Sachs tricksters may, from one hand, be the forerunners
of the major changes in life of the most famous Western oil
company. From the other hand, they still may turn out to be zilch.
The essence lies too deep, you see.
By Marat Kunaev
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