The Squeeze begins with a bang: the sound of Tom Bower blowing a hole in his own credibility. In only the second paragraph of the preface, he suggests a shaky grasp of the workings of oil markets and of Opec, the producers’ cartel, and fails dismally in an attempt to get inside the head of Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s veteran oil minister.
It is a testament to Bower’s journalistic skills, and to the great story he has to tell, that he manages to steady the ship after torpedoing it so early in the journey. For the most part, The Squeeze is a gripping and convincing account of the turbulent story of the global oil industry over the past decade.
Daniel Yergin’s dazzling book The Prize remains the definitive history of oil in the 20th century. But while the world waits for Yergin to pen a sequel, Bower has stepped in smartly to fill the gap.
The events he covers are scarcely less dramatic than those described in The Prize , including the ascent of the oil price to record highs, the power grab by leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chávez, and the downfall of corporate chiefs such as Lord Browne of BP and Sir Philip Watts of Shell . Bower’s book has the advantage of being scorchingly topical.
Think of the most important events in the global oil business of the past couple of months: BP’s giant oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico; ExxonMobil’s troubled attempt to take a $4bn stake in a big field off the coast of Ghana; and Citigroup’s sale of Phibro, its commodities unit, to Occidental Petroleum. For all of them, The Squeeze provides the fascinating story behind the headlines.
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The Squeeze begins with a bang: the sound of Tom Bower blowing a hole in his own credibility. In only the second paragraph of the preface, he suggests a shaky grasp of the workings of oil markets and of Opec, the producers’ cartel, and fails dismally in an attempt to get inside the head of Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s veteran oil minister.
