0:00:06 > 0:00:10In 1964, the year I was born, a discovery was made
0:00:10 > 0:00:15that transformed not just my life, but Britain and the world.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20I'm heading 100 miles off the north-east coast of Scotland
0:00:20 > 0:00:22into the wilds of the North Sea
0:00:22 > 0:00:25to see where that landmark moment happened.
0:00:34 > 0:00:35Ahead of me is an oil platform,
0:00:35 > 0:00:38one of many throughout these waters
0:00:38 > 0:00:42that changed our country's energy fortunes almost overnight.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48When Britain struck oil, she took her seat at the top
0:00:48 > 0:00:52table of a very exclusive club of oil-producing nations.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00But the North Sea story is just the latest in an epic tale that
0:01:00 > 0:01:03tells of the strange alchemy of oil.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09From the first moment we drew this stuff from the ground,
0:01:09 > 0:01:13we opened a Pandora's box that changed the world forever.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17It transformed the way we lived our lives.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21Dictated the outcome of our worst global conflicts.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27Became an obsession for some of our greatest leaders,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30and turned a simple natural resource into the most powerful
0:01:30 > 0:01:34political weapon the world has ever known.
0:01:34 > 0:01:35Have you tried to get petrol anywhere else?
0:01:35 > 0:01:37Oh, yes. Very, very difficult.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43But when exactly did geology turn into such a high stakes game?
0:01:47 > 0:01:51To find out, I'm going to immerse myself in the story of oil.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56I'll visit the places that have given birth to the Earth's
0:01:56 > 0:01:58oil riches.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01Ah, that's the weirdest feeling.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05Discover the people who fought over its control and supply.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08Actually, it's a really big deal, the leaders of two Western countries
0:02:08 > 0:02:13signing this decree that would essentially overthrow another one.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16And explore how our insatiable thirst for oil is transforming
0:02:16 > 0:02:19the very planet on which we depend.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25We have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30It's a journey that I hope will help me answer a fundamental question.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33How did we become so addicted to oil
0:02:33 > 0:02:35in little more than one human lifetime?
0:02:35 > 0:02:39At what point did Planet Earth become Planet Oil?
0:03:00 > 0:03:02We live in an age of oil.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09It's used in almost every part of our daily lives.
0:03:14 > 0:03:15From the food we eat...
0:03:18 > 0:03:20..to the very fabric of our homes.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29By harnessing crude oil we've completely reshaped our lives.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32It's made us mobile, it's allowed us
0:03:32 > 0:03:33to heat and light our homes.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35But also it keeps hospitals clean,
0:03:35 > 0:03:40it keeps supermarkets stocked, it gives us most of our food and drink.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Like it or not, it's part and parcel of my daily routine.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45Of your daily routine.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52It all shows just what an incredibly versatile resource oil is.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56But it also highlights the frightening speed with which
0:03:56 > 0:03:59we as a species, have come to rely on it.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02One of the big things is the basic over...
0:04:02 > 0:04:06'As a professor of geo science at Plymouth University, I lecture
0:04:06 > 0:04:07'on the geology of oil.'
0:04:07 > 0:04:10Ripple effect through the rock. Importantly....
0:04:10 > 0:04:13'But whilst my students learn about the makings of this stuff,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17'I teach them very little about why their lives are so shaped by it.'
0:04:19 > 0:04:23To understand that question, we need to first go back to the beginning
0:04:23 > 0:04:27and explore the origins of where oil actually comes from.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Here at Kimmeridge on the Dorset coast,
0:04:41 > 0:04:43I can begin to answer that question.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50The marine fossils preserved in the rock layers
0:04:50 > 0:04:54all around here are a clue to the unique quality of this landscape.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00For this is the makings of an oil factory.
0:05:05 > 0:05:07This entire cliff is essentially just a
0:05:07 > 0:05:11vertical slice through an ancient seabed.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14Or rather a successive series of seabeds,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18because each of these layers are muds that formed on the ocean
0:05:18 > 0:05:20floor and more were put on top and on top,
0:05:20 > 0:05:24till the layers kind of pushed down and compressed one another.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27But although these layers are all interesting,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30there's one that's especially important, and it's this one here.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34From about here to here, the locals calls this black stone,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37but we know it as oil shale.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45This dense layer of rock, is incredibly rich in hydrocarbons,
0:05:45 > 0:05:49the building blocks of oil, and they're packed with energy.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54But shale is young in geological terms.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58What I'm interested in is what it turns into in a few million years.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03And to see that, I need to speed up time.
0:06:05 > 0:06:07By heating it with a simple blowtorch,
0:06:07 > 0:06:10we can mimic the way in which the shale is heated
0:06:10 > 0:06:13and compressed under the Earth's surface over many millennia.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18It's a process that eventually turns into this.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25This is the stuff, this brown smear on the side of the glass
0:06:25 > 0:06:29that's transfixed humankind for over a century now.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31It's oil.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34And what makes it so mesmerising is that it's an incredible
0:06:34 > 0:06:36feat of natural engineering.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41This is energy from the sun that's been concentrated by creatures
0:06:41 > 0:06:44over decades and centuries and then intensified in this
0:06:44 > 0:06:47geological pressure cooker kilometres beneath my feet
0:06:47 > 0:06:51where this marriage of pressure and temperature has created
0:06:51 > 0:06:54a material that is absolutely jam-packed with energy.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57Far more energy than almost anything else on the planet,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01more than waves, more than wind, more than the tide.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03And it's the exploitation of that energy,
0:07:03 > 0:07:08and what it's allowed us to do, that is the essential story of oil.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14It's a story that starts 150 years ago.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19With our quest to use this concentrated energy of oil, to
0:07:19 > 0:07:23push back the night, and illuminate the world like never before.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38In 1853, an amateur geologist wandered across these
0:07:38 > 0:07:41meadows in Pennsylvania, searching for oily puddles.
0:07:45 > 0:07:46His name was George Bissell.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52He had watched as locals soaked up the liquid with blankets,
0:07:52 > 0:07:55then used it as an ointment to treat various ailments.
0:07:55 > 0:08:00But Bissell wasn't interested in the medicinal properties of this oil.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02He wanted to create this. Light.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10Up until the mid-19th century the world had been
0:08:10 > 0:08:13relying on whale oil to produce most of its artificial light.
0:08:16 > 0:08:18So much so, the animal had almost been driven to
0:08:18 > 0:08:20extinction as a result.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26Something else was needed to light the world, and Bissell had a hunch
0:08:26 > 0:08:31that the oily pools he was seeing might promise an ocean of new fuel.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38But in an age when geology was little more than guesswork, he'd
0:08:38 > 0:08:42no idea how much was there, or how far down he'd have to go to find it.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47Bissell needed someone to dig for him.
0:08:55 > 0:08:57Enter one Colonel Edwin Drake,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00a former railway conductor from New York.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05A man who was just as fascinated by oil,
0:09:05 > 0:09:08but who also liked to get his hands dirty.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14In the spring of 1859, bankrolled by
0:09:14 > 0:09:19Bissell, Drake set up at a promising site near the town of Titusville.
0:09:22 > 0:09:24His approach was straightforward enough.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27Drill down, strike oil, pump it out of the ground.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32What could be simpler?
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Almost as soon as Drake started drilling, he encountered a problem.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41Three feet down he hit the water table and there, soft,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44saturated sands and muds just collapsed in on the hole.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47It was like digging into quicksand.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50It seemed like the end of the road, but while Bissell despaired,
0:09:50 > 0:09:53Drake set about solving the problem.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55And what he came up with
0:09:55 > 0:09:58was as simple as it was genius.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08Just a few miles from Drake's well, I've come to visit local oil man,
0:10:08 > 0:10:12Billy Huber, whose family have been drawing oil from the ground
0:10:12 > 0:10:16in this area for generations, in much the same way as Drake.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23I'm hoping to learn about the art of drilling
0:10:23 > 0:10:26and shed some light on exactly what Drake's clever idea was.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31If we went back 100 years, how would this be different?
0:10:31 > 0:10:34- This? It wouldn't be any different. - Wouldn't be any different?
0:10:34 > 0:10:37Is that quite a nice feeling? The idea you're doing it the same way?
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Yeah. When my great-great-grandfather
0:10:39 > 0:10:44- come over here, that's what he was, is a...- When was that, then?
0:10:44 > 0:10:451859.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Oh, right, 1859, that's the year of Drake's well.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52- He was in at the start. - Yeah, he was in the start of it.
0:10:52 > 0:10:53That's so cool.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59So when you've cleared the ground and you're going to start drilling,
0:10:59 > 0:11:02what's the kind of first stage that you do?
0:11:02 > 0:11:04You drill the drive pipe in.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08So the drive pipe. Tell us about the drive pipe.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12The drive pipe's a piece of pipe 12 inches wide.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15- Yeah, so it's about that size. - Yeah, about like that.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17- And how long? - 20 feet long.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23And so, I mean, what would happen if you drilled without a drive pipe?
0:11:23 > 0:11:26You'd take a chance of your well collapsing.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30Yeah, so was that a kind of really crucial development in those
0:11:30 > 0:11:34- early stages?- Yeah, it was a big development in the 1800s
0:11:34 > 0:11:35when they first started.
0:11:35 > 0:11:37It seems to me quite a simple idea.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39Yeah, it's a real simple idea.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43The first drive pipe was wood and now it's steel.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47But that simple idea which was, you know, 1859 or
0:11:47 > 0:11:50something like that, you're still doing it today.
0:11:50 > 0:11:51Yeah.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57By running his drill through this drive pipe
0:11:57 > 0:11:59instead of directly into the ground,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02Drake overcame the problem of the drill hole collapsing.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07It was a neat solution that allowed him
0:12:07 > 0:12:10to drill deeper into the ground than anyone had done before.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17And on the 27th of August, 1859,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20he reached a depth of 69.5 feet...
0:12:21 > 0:12:23..and struck oil.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32Drake was completely taken by surprise,
0:12:32 > 0:12:34he just didn't know what to do.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37So he grabbed some old whisky barrels that happened to be lying
0:12:37 > 0:12:42around and used them to gather up the oil, which is why we use barrels
0:12:42 > 0:12:45today as the kind of currency, if you like, of oil production.
0:12:45 > 0:12:46But even in that instant,
0:12:46 > 0:12:50Drake knew he was going to need a lot of barrels.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53What began as a geological shot in the dark was on course
0:12:53 > 0:12:54to light up America.
0:12:58 > 0:13:00Edwin Drake and George Bissell didn't know it,
0:13:00 > 0:13:04but by extracting oil from the ground in large quantities
0:13:04 > 0:13:06like this and refining it into a useful product
0:13:06 > 0:13:10like kerosene, they had become the fathers of the modern industry.
0:13:13 > 0:13:15But their oil bonanza didn't go unnoticed.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Within 12 months, Drake was joined by a forest of over
0:13:21 > 0:13:2575 drilling rigs that popped up around his Titusville site.
0:13:29 > 0:13:31By 1861
0:13:31 > 0:13:34around one million barrels were being produced a year -
0:13:34 > 0:13:37far more than anyone knew what to do with.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41Oil Creek became a frenzied oil grab
0:13:41 > 0:13:45and nowhere typified this chaos more than in the town of Pithole.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56I've come to meet local historian Brian Black to find out
0:13:56 > 0:13:58more about this apocryphal tale.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07What you do to tell the story of a community is you go through
0:14:07 > 0:14:10US census records and one of the things that sums up Pithole
0:14:10 > 0:14:13is it never appears in the US census
0:14:13 > 0:14:17because the decennial census happens every ten years and so 1860
0:14:17 > 0:14:21it didn't exist, certainly, 1865 its oil begins
0:14:21 > 0:14:24to come in, and then by 1870 no-one's here any more.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27- So it's a flash in the plan. - Exactly.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31And so over a six-month period you had a town,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36a very prosperous town, develop just out of nowhere, literally.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45You'd have ten hotels.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48You'd have enough saloons to support them,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and essentially you were bringing buildings up from the ground
0:14:51 > 0:14:54as quickly as you could and opening them immediately.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01But for all that initial kind of planning,
0:15:01 > 0:15:05it sounds like once it started to take off it was pretty chaotic.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08Absolutely chaotic and there was very little law, there was
0:15:08 > 0:15:12very little control over anything and no-one really cared
0:15:12 > 0:15:16about controlling it because really what mattered was the oil.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20So that's what leads to the boom, that's what leads people to rush.
0:15:24 > 0:15:26So was Pithole a victim of its own success?
0:15:26 > 0:15:28I think it was.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31It's crazy to think of today that we were sloppy with oil
0:15:31 > 0:15:35but they had a bunch of it and it was the only place it was
0:15:35 > 0:15:38coming from and they simply didn't have the technology
0:15:38 > 0:15:41to control it well and so, yeah, it was slopping all over the place.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51They may have found oil here, but the pioneering fathers
0:15:51 > 0:15:54of the industry didn't have a clue what to do with it,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57apart from get it out of the ground as frantically as possible.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01As a result, America's first oil boom descended into chaos
0:16:01 > 0:16:02almost as soon as it had started.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09But as Oil Creek drowned in an ocean of crude,
0:16:09 > 0:16:12one man had been watching it all -
0:16:12 > 0:16:15an angel of light who was going to bring order
0:16:15 > 0:16:17to the brave new world of oil.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28This is the New York stately home of one of the most powerful men
0:16:28 > 0:16:29the world has ever known.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35I'd like to welcome you to the home of the richest man in America,
0:16:35 > 0:16:36welcome to Kykuit.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42An enigmatic Baptist who hated money, yet who made so much of it
0:16:42 > 0:16:46you'd need to multiply Bill Gates' fortune by ten to match it.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52This, I believe, was one of the most important rooms of this house.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55This was really the centre for philanthropy -
0:16:55 > 0:16:58a scientific approach, a whole new way of giving away money.
0:17:03 > 0:17:05John D Rockefeller.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09A name known to many, but a man known by few.
0:17:09 > 0:17:11So you can see by these photos, family is very important
0:17:11 > 0:17:14- and they were a family just like your family at home.- Mmm.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20Rockefeller would famously give a dollar to every adult
0:17:20 > 0:17:23and a dime to every child he met, such was his generosity.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27But there's more to this man than the quiet,
0:17:27 > 0:17:30upstanding gentleman of American folklore.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38Rockefeller was a towering figure of the oil industry,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41a man who taught the world how to use oil and made us realise
0:17:41 > 0:17:46how much we needed it and on the back of it made an absolute fortune.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49But for all this notion of Rockefeller as
0:17:49 > 0:17:53the well-meaning benefactor, the way that he achieved that dominance
0:17:53 > 0:17:56was through a calculated ruthlessness.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59One that earned him a nickname -
0:17:59 > 0:18:00The Anaconda.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08Rockefeller had, just like George Bissell and Edwin Drake,
0:18:08 > 0:18:13been struck by oil fever in the 1860s, but he was no geologist.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15Rockefeller was a numbers man.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21As a greengrocer, he had made a good living by carefully counting
0:18:21 > 0:18:24every dollar and cent to build his business up,
0:18:24 > 0:18:26so when Oil Creek came about,
0:18:26 > 0:18:31Rockefeller was just as fascinated by lighting up America as Bissell.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33But he had done his sums.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36He knew the price of whale oil had quadrupled in a year
0:18:36 > 0:18:38and was now unaffordable.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41He knew that for every dollar spent drilling an oil well,
0:18:41 > 0:18:43thousands were returned.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47He knew that the world was turning to kerosene to light their homes
0:18:47 > 0:18:49and that the numbers looked good.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53Rockefeller invested all his fruit
0:18:53 > 0:18:57and veg money in an oil refinery in 1865
0:18:57 > 0:19:01and quickly used the profits to build a second one.
0:19:01 > 0:19:02But, crucially,
0:19:02 > 0:19:05he also did something else that others in Pennsylvania had not.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12While everyone else was fixated with quantity,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15for Rockefeller it was quality that was key.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19I mean, oil was only valuable if it could be refined into something
0:19:19 > 0:19:22that people actually wanted to light their homes with and to ensure
0:19:22 > 0:19:26that that happened, he had to make his kerosene the best around.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33Standardising the quality of his product was the key
0:19:33 > 0:19:35to success for Rockefeller.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38And what better way to guarantee that quality
0:19:38 > 0:19:40than to name your company after it?
0:19:42 > 0:19:44Standard.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46An oil you could always trust.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52As far as Rockefeller was concerned, this was going to be
0:19:52 > 0:19:54the only name that lit up America.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00And to be absolutely sure that happened,
0:20:00 > 0:20:05the Anaconda was about to earn his reputation as a ruthless oil baron.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12For Rockefeller, getting his oil to market
0:20:12 > 0:20:16was just as important as ensuring its quality,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19and that part of the jigsaw depended on the rail network.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25But in order to influence the transportation of oil, he would
0:20:25 > 0:20:28have to conspire with the railroad companies that controlled it.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34I've come to meet Rockefeller historian
0:20:34 > 0:20:36Barbara Shubinski to find out more.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44The deals that Standard Oil cut with the railroads involved two aspects.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46The most straightforward one is a rebate.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49So a railroad has a set price for shipping freight
0:20:49 > 0:20:52and a large shipper like Standard Oil might get a discount.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55You can think of it as a bulk discount, so he's shipping
0:20:55 > 0:20:59more cheaply than his competitors, especially the smaller competitors.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02But the second aspect of the deal with the railroads is what
0:21:02 > 0:21:05really drives it home, which is called the drawback.
0:21:05 > 0:21:11What a drawback is is the penalty you pay as a small producer -
0:21:11 > 0:21:15unbeknownst to you - to the big producer who is already getting
0:21:15 > 0:21:18his own discount or rebate and that's Rockefeller and Standard Oil.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22- Wow.- So if you figure shipping is two dollars,
0:21:22 > 0:21:25Standard Oil pays one dollar per gallon, per bushel,
0:21:25 > 0:21:30per barrel, you know, what have you. A smaller competitor is paying two,
0:21:30 > 0:21:35but 50 cents out of their two is also going to Standard Oil
0:21:35 > 0:21:39so in the end, they're paying two and Standard Oil's paying 50 cents.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42- So it's price fixing right across that sector.- Right.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44It's kind of genius. I mean...
0:21:44 > 0:21:46- It is kind of genius. - That's incredible.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50It was the perfect scam.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54Rockefeller could reduce his own shipping costs to almost nothing
0:21:54 > 0:21:58while those of his competitors became unaffordable.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00And as he was their biggest customer,
0:22:00 > 0:22:03the railroads were more than happy to play along with his game.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08By today's standards it's a highly illegal practice,
0:22:08 > 0:22:12but in 1870 it was a power that allowed Rockefeller
0:22:12 > 0:22:16to kill the competition and take total control of the industry.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22Within a decade, he monopolised America's kerosene supply
0:22:22 > 0:22:23owning over 80% of it.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29Rockefeller was the undisputed king of light.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36Never before had one man become so rich and powerful so quickly
0:22:36 > 0:22:38on the back of a single natural resource.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45The only problem he did have was a geological one.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50While the world was falling in love with this new fuel, nobody knew
0:22:50 > 0:22:54how much of it there was or where exactly you could find some more.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00Rockefeller may have brought light to America
0:23:00 > 0:23:04and in the process taken control of the oil industry, but to be honest,
0:23:04 > 0:23:07was it worth controlling if there was no oil to sell?
0:23:11 > 0:23:14He thought that he'd cracked that problem of supply
0:23:14 > 0:23:18when geologists drilling through the limestone rocks of Ohio uncovered
0:23:18 > 0:23:22what was, at the time, the world's biggest reserves of crude oil.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26In typically aggressive style,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29Standard moved in and bought the lot.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34Eventually Rockefeller had amassed something like ten million barrels
0:23:34 > 0:23:39of Lima oil, an act that almost bankrupted the company.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41Mind you, he had secured the world's oil future.
0:23:43 > 0:23:44Or had he?
0:23:44 > 0:23:48It turns out there was a problem with Rockefeller's new oil.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54From BBC Television, we're doing a series about oil.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58And this stuff, 100 years ago, they used to light their homes with.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01Never took on. I'm just wondering, what do you think? What do you...?
0:24:02 > 0:24:05Woow! Smells like a stink bomb!
0:24:05 > 0:24:06Eww!
0:24:08 > 0:24:09Oh!
0:24:09 > 0:24:11- What's wrong?- Stinks.
0:24:15 > 0:24:17Nice? Not nice? You like?
0:24:17 > 0:24:18No!
0:24:20 > 0:24:22Ooow!
0:24:23 > 0:24:27Damn! Smells like shit, dude!
0:24:27 > 0:24:28- Have a smell.- Eurgh!
0:24:28 > 0:24:30That's disgusting! Get away from me!
0:24:30 > 0:24:32No. What's wrong with my oil?
0:24:35 > 0:24:37The Lima wells produced something that was called skunk oil
0:24:37 > 0:24:39because it absolutely stank.
0:24:39 > 0:24:40I mean, this stuff...
0:24:40 > 0:24:44smells like something's crawled in there and died.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49That rich aroma is a noxious cocktail of crude oil and sulphur.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53The thing is, see when you burn this stuff, it smells even worse.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56That's the point, no-one wanted to light their homes
0:24:56 > 0:24:58with something that smelled of skunk,
0:24:58 > 0:25:02and yet Rockefeller had just bought an ocean of the stuff.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08His solution? Throw money at the problem.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12Rockefeller paid some of the world's finest chemists to work out
0:25:12 > 0:25:15a way of removing the oil's sulphurous odour.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20It was a close call, but it worked
0:25:20 > 0:25:24and Rockefeller managed to maintain his stranglehold on the industry.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34But smelly oil was an omen of things to come.
0:25:35 > 0:25:37For 6,000 miles away,
0:25:37 > 0:25:40a new chapter in Planet Oil was about to begin...
0:25:45 > 0:25:49..one that was going to turn Rockefeller's world upside down.
0:25:52 > 0:25:53Eurgh!
0:25:53 > 0:25:55That's disgusting.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58Eurgh! It's hot as well.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01HE LAUGHS
0:26:02 > 0:26:03HE EXHALES DEEPLY
0:26:05 > 0:26:08Oh, that's the weirdest feeling.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11I guess, to appreciate oil, you have to do this -
0:26:11 > 0:26:14you have to immerse yourself completely in it.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16That's the way to...
0:26:16 > 0:26:17to understand it.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20This Baku oil, let me introduce you.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23It's got low viscosity, which means it's runny, basically.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27It's really high quality, which means it refines easily
0:26:27 > 0:26:30and it burns for a long time, so it's fantastic stuff.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33Round here, they talk mainly about its health qualities.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38It's really good for arthritis and for skin diseases like psoriasis.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42That's what it was used for up until the 1870s, when one man
0:26:42 > 0:26:44could see a very different future for it.
0:26:49 > 0:26:50Robert Nobel,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54a military industrialist, had arrived in this remote land
0:26:54 > 0:26:58by the shores of the Caspian Sea in search of wood to make rifles.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05But instead of green forests, he found a strange black landscape.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11A place where the very rocks were on fire.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16For Nobel, this was not like being on Earth,
0:27:16 > 0:27:18but somewhere deep inside it.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24He witnessed rivers of oil and flaming gas vents everywhere...
0:27:26 > 0:27:30..all signs of a landscape that was alive with nature's energy.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38And as these mud volcanoes show, that geological power
0:27:38 > 0:27:42is as evident today as it was for Nobel in the 1870s.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48This is just a baby one, some of them around here can be
0:27:48 > 0:27:52700 metres high and 10km across.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55What's actually driving it is hundreds of metres
0:27:55 > 0:27:59down beneath me - soft mud that's under lots of pressure and has got
0:27:59 > 0:28:03pockets of natural gas that rise up and spew out at the surface.
0:28:03 > 0:28:06What that means is that, although this landscape sounds
0:28:06 > 0:28:09like a kind of gurgling toilet, actually what it's telling you
0:28:09 > 0:28:13is that there's this vast pool of hydrocarbons deep beneath our feet.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21And it was that hydrocarbon energy that sparked Nobel's interest.
0:28:22 > 0:28:27For in them, he saw his opportunity to join the age of light.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39He and his brother formed The Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company,
0:28:39 > 0:28:42and set about establishing what was going to become
0:28:42 > 0:28:44the single biggest oil producer in the world.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50But a glut of new kerosene was not much use to them
0:28:50 > 0:28:52without a market to sell it to.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59Whilst demand was high in neighbouring countries like Russia,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02the Nobels knew that if they wanted to be
0:29:02 > 0:29:04a serious player in the industry,
0:29:04 > 0:29:06they had to find new territory of their own...
0:29:08 > 0:29:10..and that meant looking east.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19Asia was a massive market for any new supplier,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22but it was a long way from the oil fields.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28A torturously slow and expensive land route
0:29:28 > 0:29:31from Baku across the Middle East was the only way
0:29:31 > 0:29:34of getting the Nobels' kerosene to their new customers.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43And if that wasn't bad enough, they had another problem -
0:29:43 > 0:29:45the Anaconda was watching.
0:29:48 > 0:29:52Rockefeller also had his eye on lighting up Asia...
0:29:52 > 0:29:56and getting his oil there by sea from America was in fact
0:29:56 > 0:29:59easier than it was for the Nobels to transport theirs by land.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04If the new pretenders were going to compete with the king of kerosene
0:30:04 > 0:30:08and crack Asia, they needed to solve their transportation problem fast.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15The answer came in the unlikely form of this.
0:30:15 > 0:30:17The son of an English shell merchant,
0:30:17 > 0:30:21and a man who would solve the Nobels' Baku oil problem
0:30:21 > 0:30:26and, in turn, create one of the great brands of the modern world.
0:30:26 > 0:30:28He was called Marcus Samuel.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36Samuel was a frugal merchant, famed for his cost-cutting prowess
0:30:36 > 0:30:39and well connected to the Asian market that the Nobels
0:30:39 > 0:30:41so desperately wanted to reach.
0:30:43 > 0:30:47Oil was not his business, but seeing off the competition was.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55Samuel figured that to shut Rockefeller
0:30:55 > 0:30:57and Standard Oil out of Europe and Asia,
0:30:57 > 0:31:00what he needed to do was to ship Robert Nobel's oil quicker
0:31:00 > 0:31:02and in greater bulk,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05basically selling it cheap and fast to the new market.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08But to do that he had to piece together
0:31:08 > 0:31:11one last crucial part of the jigsaw -
0:31:11 > 0:31:12the Suez Canal.
0:31:17 > 0:31:20Opened in 1869, the Suez was a new man-made waterway
0:31:20 > 0:31:24that connected the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27It allowed merchant ships to carve over 2,000 miles
0:31:27 > 0:31:30off their journey from Europe into Asia.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34If the Nobels' Baku oil was going to get to market faster,
0:31:34 > 0:31:36they needed to use this new canal.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43The problem was that the old clipper ships used to carry oil
0:31:43 > 0:31:48in the 19th century were deemed unsafe by the canal's owners.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51For them, thousands of barrels of oil rolling around
0:31:51 > 0:31:54a huge wooden hold was simply too dangerous.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00If Samuel could alter the basic shape of the vessel,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03from the kind of traditional bathtub design
0:32:03 > 0:32:04with a large single or double hold
0:32:04 > 0:32:07to something that was longer and slender
0:32:07 > 0:32:08and had multiple sealed chambers,
0:32:08 > 0:32:13then not only could he carry more oil, but he could do it safer.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16The result was something that would transform the way that crude oil
0:32:16 > 0:32:19gets transported and on the way create one of the great icons
0:32:19 > 0:32:21of the modern oil industry.
0:32:26 > 0:32:30The super tanker - the solution to the company's problem.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37Samuel could now transport twice as much oil
0:32:37 > 0:32:41and because it was safely stored in lots of sealed containers,
0:32:41 > 0:32:45the Suez Canal deemed it safe enough to use the waterway.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52It was a game changer.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59Samuel's new oil tankers beat Rockefeller to Asia,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02and by 1892, it allowed them
0:33:02 > 0:33:04to totally dominate the oil market there.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12Baku became THE worldwide hub for oil production,
0:33:12 > 0:33:17making the Nobel brothers very rich men and, thanks to Marcus Samuel,
0:33:17 > 0:33:21creating one of the most iconic names the industry has ever known.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28The Anaconda's monopoly was over.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31This industry was just too big for one man to control.
0:33:33 > 0:33:38And it wasn't long before others joined in this global oil race.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41In the last years of the 19th century,
0:33:41 > 0:33:44a new oil giant emerged with every new oil find,
0:33:44 > 0:33:48and it seemed that there was oil to be found everywhere in the world,
0:33:48 > 0:33:52from the jungles of Sumatra, to South America,
0:33:52 > 0:33:54and to the plains of Texas.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57This was a glut of new crude to feed this new age of light.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01But as the new kings of oil fought over whose kerosene
0:34:01 > 0:34:03was going to burn the brightest,
0:34:03 > 0:34:05they failed to notice a new spark on the horizon
0:34:05 > 0:34:07that would eclipse them all
0:34:07 > 0:34:10and threaten the very existence of the oil industry.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15Electricity.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18On 4th September 1882,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22the inventor Thomas Edison flicked a switch on a steam-powered motor
0:34:22 > 0:34:23here at Holborn Viaduct
0:34:23 > 0:34:27and sent a surge of electric current through some wires that immediately
0:34:27 > 0:34:33illuminated dozens of street lamps and homes in this patch of London.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36In that moment, Edison brought electric illumination
0:34:36 > 0:34:41to the masses - the clean, safe, easy-to-use form of light.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Within two years, most of the western world would be using it
0:34:44 > 0:34:45to light their homes,
0:34:45 > 0:34:49which is great news for the inventor, but catastrophic for oil.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55With the advent of the electric light,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58oil was rendered almost completely redundant overnight
0:34:58 > 0:35:01and it highlighted a huge problem for the industry.
0:35:04 > 0:35:06It only really had one use and without it,
0:35:06 > 0:35:08it had no purpose at all.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14As far as the new giants of the industry were concerned,
0:35:14 > 0:35:18they simply had to find another reason for the world to need oil.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25Lucky for them, they were about to find one.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31ENGINE STARTS
0:35:36 > 0:35:38Last year, a new watermark was reached
0:35:38 > 0:35:42when the number of cars in the world surpassed one billion -
0:35:42 > 0:35:46that's one for every six people on the planet.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49It's a statistic that tells of probably the single greatest
0:35:49 > 0:35:52technological revolution the world has known.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59We're obsessed with cars the world over.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03Their invention allowed us to move around like never before.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05And for the oil industry,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08this new age of mobility was an absolute godsend.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15The invention of a machine that actually needed oil to work
0:36:15 > 0:36:19was like manna from heaven, but perhaps more remarkable
0:36:19 > 0:36:21was the type of oil it needed.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29In the age of light, kerosene was the only thing
0:36:29 > 0:36:33that the oil industry wanted out of the refining process.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36But with the advent of the car, all that was about to change.
0:36:38 > 0:36:42I've come to a petrochemical lab in London to take a closer look
0:36:42 > 0:36:44at what that transformation was.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49So this is the laboratory equivalent of a refinery.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52Our crude oil is actually in the flask here at the bottom.
0:36:52 > 0:36:53Ah, look at that, boiling away.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55- As you can see, it's boiling away. - Fantastic.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58So the temperature of this flask at the moment
0:36:58 > 0:37:01is probably around about 100 degrees C, and the oil is boiling,
0:37:01 > 0:37:05the lighter boiling material is going up the column as a vapour.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08- Yep.- It hits our condenser at the top, the vapour liquefies,
0:37:08 > 0:37:10drops back down the column,
0:37:10 > 0:37:12so the lighter material comes off first
0:37:12 > 0:37:14and it gradually gets heavier and heavier
0:37:14 > 0:37:16as you go through the distillation process.
0:37:19 > 0:37:21As the crude oil is heated,
0:37:21 > 0:37:24the useful products we all know and love begin to emerge.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27Gases like propane come first, followed by kerosene
0:37:27 > 0:37:31and the other liquid hydrocarbons.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33And so is this the order they come off?
0:37:33 > 0:37:37Yes, so the first product - many years ago -
0:37:37 > 0:37:39was basically a waste product that was discarded.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41The second product is the kerosene.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44So kerosene, this is the, kind of... The gold dust of the time?
0:37:44 > 0:37:46This gave us all that fantastic light.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49Yes, very much so, and nowadays it's used as aviation fuel.
0:37:49 > 0:37:51Of course, yeah.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54So, basically, each of these have their uses, have their own value.
0:37:54 > 0:37:56Very much so, yes.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59It's like a little alcoholic still you've got going on here.
0:37:59 > 0:38:00THEY LAUGH
0:38:00 > 0:38:03- Yes.- You're not tempted sometimes... a little whisky...
0:38:03 > 0:38:05a little whisky set-up you could have here?
0:38:05 > 0:38:06Unfortunately not, no.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10I think the government tax might have something to say about that.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16Today, oil refinement creates many useful products,
0:38:16 > 0:38:19but as the automobile emerged in the early 20th century,
0:38:19 > 0:38:23ironically, it was the least valued part of the distillation process
0:38:23 > 0:38:27that was going to become the industry's most prized asset.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33This clear liquid that came from that refinement
0:38:33 > 0:38:36was once considered one of those useless by-products,
0:38:36 > 0:38:38it was just chucked away.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42But as the age of light began to be overtaken by the age of speed,
0:38:42 > 0:38:46all that was about to change, because it was this,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49not the car, that was the saviour of the oil industry.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51This...is gasoline.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58Gasoline's by-product status was, perversely, the very thing
0:38:58 > 0:39:01that made it useful in the first place.
0:39:02 > 0:39:04When Karl Benz was experimenting
0:39:04 > 0:39:07with the world's first internal combustion engine,
0:39:07 > 0:39:09it was the only fuel he could afford,
0:39:09 > 0:39:11and he designed his engine accordingly.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15It was a happy accident that would transform gasoline
0:39:15 > 0:39:18from waste product to automotive gold dust.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23For the first time in human history we had an energy source
0:39:23 > 0:39:28so potent that a thimbleful could do the work of 20 horses.
0:39:28 > 0:39:33That concentrated power was oil's new future, and it wasn't long
0:39:33 > 0:39:36before the entire world realised how much we'd need it.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47In 1911, as Winston Churchill took up his role
0:39:47 > 0:39:50as First Lord of the Admiralty, 1,000 miles away
0:39:50 > 0:39:54off the coast of Morocco, something ominous appeared on the horizon.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01A German gunboat had arrived
0:40:01 > 0:40:05in response to the French colonisation of Morocco.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08But it wasn't so much the military threat that troubled Churchill,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11it was the gunboat's speed.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13A speed driven by oil.
0:40:17 > 0:40:20Britain's naval fleet, indeed its entire military might,
0:40:20 > 0:40:24relied on coal, something Britain had plenty of.
0:40:25 > 0:40:27But it was dirty, slow
0:40:27 > 0:40:30and, as far as Churchill was concerned, completely out of date.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37What he needed was a new type of energy that packed a punch.
0:40:37 > 0:40:39He needed oil.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44As Churchill himself said in 1911,
0:40:44 > 0:40:47there's only one defence and that's speed.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51The fact is that oil generated twice as much heat as coal when it burns,
0:40:51 > 0:40:55and that means that warships could go further, they could go faster,
0:40:55 > 0:41:00something like 25 knots for oil versus only ten for coal.
0:41:00 > 0:41:01That's a hell of a difference.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05In military terms it gave Germany a critical advantage.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07Churchill's warships needed oil.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14The dilemma was that whilst crude oil was emerging at the heart
0:41:14 > 0:41:18of the modern military, Britain had absolutely none of its own.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23But thankfully, Churchill knew exactly where to get some.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC
0:41:34 > 0:41:36Since the turn of the century,
0:41:36 > 0:41:40British companies had been scouring the Middle East for the black stuff.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46And it was in these barren desert lands
0:41:46 > 0:41:48that Churchill saw his opportunity.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55In June 1914,
0:41:55 > 0:42:00legislation was passed that secured him the biggest oil deal in history.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06A little-known company called Anglo-Persian Oil
0:42:06 > 0:42:10was granted an exclusive contract to supply oil to the British military,
0:42:10 > 0:42:13but with one crucial caveat.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17The government owned 51%.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19The controlling share.
0:42:23 > 0:42:25It was a landmark moment.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29For the first time in history...a government was in the oil business.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35The future energy needs of nations was going to depend on this resource
0:42:35 > 0:42:38to keep them moving, and much more besides.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42Churchill knew it and in that moment showed
0:42:42 > 0:42:45that he wasn't just a clever politician,
0:42:45 > 0:42:47but a true oil visionary.
0:42:50 > 0:42:51And with the greatest conflict
0:42:51 > 0:42:54the world had ever seen about to take hold,
0:42:54 > 0:42:57it would prove more important than even Churchill could imagine.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08By the outbreak of the Great War,
0:43:08 > 0:43:12Churchill's overhaul of his military fleet was well underway,
0:43:12 > 0:43:15and he had secured a river of Middle Eastern oil to feed it.
0:43:18 > 0:43:20But none of it could stop the Great War
0:43:20 > 0:43:22being the tragedy that it was.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29People power, not oil, was still at the heart of frontline conflict.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36When I think of the Great War, I think of trench warfare
0:43:36 > 0:43:38and that colossal human carnage
0:43:38 > 0:43:40that places like this just bring home to you,
0:43:40 > 0:43:43but one of the most defining moments of the conflict
0:43:43 > 0:43:46wasn't dictated by the gun, but by gasoline.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49Outside of France the incident is hardly known,
0:43:49 > 0:43:52but here it's referred to as the Taxi Armada,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54and the key to it was the speed of oil.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02It's an event that took place within a month of the outbreak
0:44:02 > 0:44:04of the Great War in 1914.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08Paris was already on the verge of being taken by the Kaiser,
0:44:08 > 0:44:12as German forces amassed just a few miles from the city limits.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19The fall was imminent.
0:44:19 > 0:44:21While most people, including the entire French government,
0:44:21 > 0:44:24had already fled Paris, the city's military general,
0:44:24 > 0:44:27the rather eccentric Joseph Gallieni,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30was less keen to see it abandoned.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34For him, if Paris fell, the war was lost.
0:44:34 > 0:44:36The Germans had to be stopped.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39The French made a desperate attempt to save the city,
0:44:39 > 0:44:43but found themselves heavily outnumbered on the front line.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45Gallieni needed reinforcements,
0:44:45 > 0:44:49but all his backup troops were 30 miles away in Paris.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52The story goes that General Gallieni was standing on the street
0:44:52 > 0:44:56near Les Invalides when he saw a taxi go by...
0:44:57 > 0:44:59..then he saw another one,
0:44:59 > 0:45:01and another and it suddenly dawned on him -
0:45:01 > 0:45:04what if he took these new gasoline-powered cars
0:45:04 > 0:45:06and used them to take his troops to the front?
0:45:09 > 0:45:12And so the call went out to all Parisian cabs to abandon
0:45:12 > 0:45:16their passengers and assemble at the Boulevard des Invalides.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21I'm catching a cab ride with historian Laurent Henninger
0:45:21 > 0:45:23to find out what happened next.
0:45:26 > 0:45:29So tell me, how did the Taxi Armada unfold?
0:45:29 > 0:45:34Well, the 600 taxis were gathered here
0:45:34 > 0:45:38on that very Esplanade des Invalides where we are at the moment.
0:45:38 > 0:45:46They gather the troops... and with five troopers per taxi.
0:45:46 > 0:45:48So, was it a turning point, if not in the war,
0:45:48 > 0:45:51but in the way that motor vehicles were used in war?
0:45:51 > 0:45:53Yes, because it was probably one of the first examples,
0:45:53 > 0:45:58historical examples, of the extensive use of cars
0:45:58 > 0:46:01in transporting troops in a war.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05It was the beginning of a big historical trend
0:46:05 > 0:46:08that was the motorization of warfare.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10Right, so it wasn't just symbolic,
0:46:10 > 0:46:14it was actually a game changer, in the sense of the way it was done.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17Of course, it was a huge game changer,
0:46:17 > 0:46:21and there's a funny little anecdote that while the taxis were carrying,
0:46:21 > 0:46:26were ferrying the troops, their meters were running.
0:46:26 > 0:46:28So they were still charging?!
0:46:28 > 0:46:30- Yes.- That's brilliant.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35Gallieni's Taxi Armada supplied over 6,000 troops to the front
0:46:35 > 0:46:38within 24 hours.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42With the French line strengthened, the Germans fell back.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45Never before had so many been moved so quickly.
0:46:49 > 0:46:52But the story of the Parisian Taxi Armada
0:46:52 > 0:46:55was not just about quick military thinking,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58it was a sign of how oil was going to shape our future.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02From armies to everyday life,
0:47:02 > 0:47:06mankind was falling in love with the black stuff
0:47:06 > 0:47:10and as the ink finally dried on the Versailles Treaty in 1919,
0:47:10 > 0:47:13both the winners and the losers were in no doubt
0:47:13 > 0:47:15about just how significant that was.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20And there was one place on the planet that was going to be
0:47:20 > 0:47:22crucial to oil's future,
0:47:22 > 0:47:26a region that had been completely torn apart by the Great War.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49The Middle East had been ruled over by the Turks for hundreds of years.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52But the price of allying with German in World War I
0:47:52 > 0:47:55was the collapse of their empire in 1918.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03Most of the Allies were scratching their head over what to do
0:48:03 > 0:48:05with this vast region.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07All of them except one.
0:48:07 > 0:48:09Britain's oil guru, Winston Churchill,
0:48:09 > 0:48:11knew exactly what to do.
0:48:11 > 0:48:16For him, this kingdom represented oil security
0:48:16 > 0:48:19and the key to keeping Britain great.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23The collapse of the Ottoman Empire wasn't so much a problem...
0:48:23 > 0:48:25more an oil opportunity.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31The Allies agreed to partition large parts of the region
0:48:31 > 0:48:33into a new league of nations,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36a redrawing of the map that would be the template
0:48:36 > 0:48:38for much of the Arab world today.
0:48:40 > 0:48:44Up until now, Churchill's interest had mainly been on Iran,
0:48:44 > 0:48:48thanks to the government's stake in Anglo-Persian Oil.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51But with this new mandate his attention turned
0:48:51 > 0:48:54to neighbouring Mesopotamia, better known today as Iraq.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59This would be his next big oil steal.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05But Churchill wasn't the only oil baron on the scene.
0:49:05 > 0:49:07He had competition.
0:49:11 > 0:49:13Calouste Gulbenkian,
0:49:13 > 0:49:15a British-born Armenian businessman
0:49:15 > 0:49:18who was as passionate about oil as the British were.
0:49:21 > 0:49:24Gulbenkian was a rising star in the oil industry
0:49:24 > 0:49:28and had made a fortune from the oil fields of Baku.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31But the Middle East had always been the real prize,
0:49:31 > 0:49:35and in 1925, he began the search for oil in Iraq.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46His instincts proved correct when, in 1927,
0:49:46 > 0:49:48he struck the world's biggest oil well
0:49:48 > 0:49:52at Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk in Northern Iraq.
0:49:52 > 0:49:57The massive oil find would provide Gulbenkian with untold wealth.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04But like Churchill, he wasn't so much interested
0:50:04 > 0:50:08in the money oil brought, as the power it could wield.
0:50:11 > 0:50:14On July 31st, 1928,
0:50:14 > 0:50:17in the Belgian city of Ostend,
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Gulbenkian gathered together around the same table the heads
0:50:20 > 0:50:25of the world's top oil companies - Anglo-Persian, Standard, Shell.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27His plan was to invite them
0:50:27 > 0:50:30to tender for his newly acquired oil fields.
0:50:30 > 0:50:34But with one crucial caveat.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37Gulbenkian pulled out a map, laid it on the table
0:50:37 > 0:50:40and drew a thick red line around all the Middle Eastern territories
0:50:40 > 0:50:42that were owned by the companies in the room.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45"These are our oil fields," he said.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48"But what if we make them one single oil field?"
0:50:54 > 0:50:57Gulbenkian's plan was to create a single oil cartel
0:50:57 > 0:51:00out of the area marked in red,
0:51:00 > 0:51:03under which all the companies would operate under shared terms
0:51:03 > 0:51:05and equal ownership.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08That meant full cooperation on everything
0:51:08 > 0:51:10from production to pricing.
0:51:16 > 0:51:21What Gulbenkian proposed was an end to competition between oil producers
0:51:21 > 0:51:23and the creation of a new monopoly.
0:51:26 > 0:51:31The Iraq Petroleum Company, a new oil superpower.
0:51:31 > 0:51:33The Middle East now joined the rest of the world
0:51:33 > 0:51:37in the rise of Planet Oil, ensuring that we would all,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40quite literally, be in the black for generations to come.
0:51:44 > 0:51:45Or would we?
0:51:50 > 0:51:52CROWDS CHEER
0:51:52 > 0:51:56For before the world even had a chance to recover from the tragedy
0:51:56 > 0:52:00of the Great War, another global conflict was on the horizon.
0:52:00 > 0:52:02HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN
0:52:02 > 0:52:03CROWD ROARS
0:52:03 > 0:52:06Hitler's vision was of a thousand-year Reich.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14But as his armies advanced across Europe in the autumn of 1939,
0:52:14 > 0:52:18he knew that oil was going to be the key to make that happen.
0:52:23 > 0:52:26World War II was a conflict consumed by crude.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33In the air...
0:52:33 > 0:52:34at sea....
0:52:34 > 0:52:38and on the ground, every battle was fed by oil.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46Hitler's war machine needed some four million barrels every month,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49yet within a year of the conflict starting,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52his monthly supplies were less than half that.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55He needed oil fast,
0:52:55 > 0:53:00and the massive reserves of Baku was where he would get it.
0:53:00 > 0:53:02The race was on.
0:53:07 > 0:53:11For the Germany Army, that quest became a brutal 2,000 mile push
0:53:11 > 0:53:16across some of the most inhospitable terrain in Europe,
0:53:16 > 0:53:19and through the Red Army lines that stood in their way.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27It was a catastrophic failure.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30Blinded by the prize, Hitler's oil-thirsty armies
0:53:30 > 0:53:33ran out of the very fuel they were chasing
0:53:33 > 0:53:35long before they ever reached Baku.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43It was a problem that dogged the German military campaign
0:53:43 > 0:53:46at every turn. I mean, Messerschmitt jets,
0:53:46 > 0:53:50state of the art fighters, twice as fast as anything the Allies had got,
0:53:50 > 0:53:54were grounded, hauled off runways by farm animals,
0:53:54 > 0:53:58whilst the oil reserves that Germany did control - mainly in Romania -
0:53:58 > 0:54:03were bombarded relentlessly by Churchill and the Allies.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10Churchill knew that by destroying what little oil Hitler did have,
0:54:10 > 0:54:13whilst at the same time protecting his own supplies,
0:54:13 > 0:54:15the war would be won.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20Britain's oil guru was right yet again.
0:54:24 > 0:54:28By 1944, Germany was almost all out of fuel.
0:54:29 > 0:54:31Hitler's war was over.
0:54:35 > 0:54:40The thousand-year Reich ultimately stuttering through a lack of oil.
0:54:40 > 0:54:42It was a remarkable fact that showed just how much
0:54:42 > 0:54:4520th century conflict was controlled not by the will of man,
0:54:45 > 0:54:48but by the power of petroleum.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51CROWD CHEERS
0:54:51 > 0:54:53As the war ended,
0:54:53 > 0:54:57it was clear just how much oil was going to reshape our entire future.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07Returning soldiers wanted to drive gasoline-powered cars
0:55:07 > 0:55:08more than ever before.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14Their wives now wanted new clothes made from the latest fashion craze,
0:55:14 > 0:55:18nylon produced from oil derivative Benzene.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21And their children, the baby boomer generation,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25began to play with hula hoops and a whole host of modern toys,
0:55:25 > 0:55:29made from another new oil-based invention - plastic.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35The very fabric of family life was now woven from oil
0:55:35 > 0:55:38and we were going to use it like never before.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47It's when you're in a place like this that it really hits you.
0:55:47 > 0:55:49This...this is oil.
0:55:49 > 0:55:52I don't mean the energy just to create this stuff,
0:55:52 > 0:55:54I mean the material that clothes us,
0:55:54 > 0:55:59that feeds us, that gives us this kind of paraphernalia of daily life.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03By the end of World War II, we had entered the age of Hydrocarbon Man
0:56:03 > 0:56:08and with that was essentially the makings of who we are today.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13But the world was going to need a lot of oil
0:56:13 > 0:56:15to feed our new addiction.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20And as far as the post-war leaders of the Western world were concerned,
0:56:20 > 0:56:23the Middle East was going to be our key supplier.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33Britain's oil visionary, Churchill, had already foreseen
0:56:33 > 0:56:36just how important this region was going to be,
0:56:36 > 0:56:39and it wasn't long before others saw it, too.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48US President Roosevelt had spent much of the war
0:56:48 > 0:56:52eyeing the Middle East's growing oil reserves,
0:56:52 > 0:56:56and there was one part of it that interested him more than any other.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03One August evening in 1944,
0:57:03 > 0:57:07before the final bell had even been tolled on World War II,
0:57:07 > 0:57:10Britain's ambassador to the US, Lord Halifax,
0:57:10 > 0:57:13was invited to the White House for dinner with the President.
0:57:15 > 0:57:18Roosevelt had a little sketch he wanted to show him.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22The President produced a map of the Middle East under which
0:57:22 > 0:57:24various lines were drawn.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27"Persian Oil, that's yours," he said.
0:57:27 > 0:57:28"Iraq and Kuwait we share.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32"And as for Saudi Arabian oil, that's ours."
0:57:32 > 0:57:35That blunt statement defined America's entire vision
0:57:35 > 0:57:40of the future. This was going to be an age where politics shaped oil,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44and where Saudi Arabia fuelled Hydrocarbon Man.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51But in their haste, Roosevelt, Churchill,
0:57:51 > 0:57:54and the other self-appointed kings of crude
0:57:54 > 0:57:57had overlooked one important thing...
0:57:58 > 0:58:01..the people whose oil they were taking.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06Planet Oil was about to get political,
0:58:06 > 0:58:09as Saudi Arabia and much of the Middle East flexed their muscles
0:58:09 > 0:58:13and took control of their own oil destiny.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21Next time, we look at how the most powerful oil superpower
0:58:21 > 0:58:24the world has ever known came to dominate...
0:58:24 > 0:58:28The era of a very cheap source of energy is gone.
0:58:28 > 0:58:30And this is a new era.
0:58:30 > 0:58:34..and how its rise would bring the rest of the world to its knees.
0:58:34 > 0:58:37'The sudden cut off of oil from the Middle East
0:58:37 > 0:58:42'has turned the serious energy shortages we expected this winter
0:58:42 > 0:58:45'into a major energy crisis.'