A new book tells the story of the oil industry’s boom-bust cycle through the personalities of its main protagonists. It isn’t always a flattering portrait, writes Derek Brower
The book is especially strong on such juicy details, not least when it describes the machinations rivalries, personality clashes and egos at work during the mega-merger period of the late 1990s. Browne’s successor, Tony Hayward, is seen entertaining Gazprom boss Alexei Miller at a Chelsea football match in London. Shell’s former chief, Jeroen van der Veer, argues in German, without interpreters, with Russia’s then president Vladimir Putin about the Sakhalin Energy project at a private function in Holland. And so on.