FRACTALS AND THE "BRITISH PETROLEUM": Side notes

Due to the catastrophe in the Mexican Gulf, the word on the streets is the "Brit
ish Petroleum". We, however, are willing to continue our conversation not about
the accident in the Mexican Gulf itself, but rather about the most curious momen
ts of transnational capitalism history itself. While discussing the peculiaritie
s 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 d
efinition of such contemporary term as the "fractals". Fractal (from Latin "frac
tus" — 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 fract
al contains the full information about whole fractal.
Official history claims that in May of 1901 British aristocrat William Knox D’Ar
cy — who succeeded at the gold-mining in Australia — "was granted the approval o
f Persian government" for the geological exploration and production of oil. A bi
t less official version adds that the "approval" was obtained thanks to the seri
es of bribes to the corrupted Persian bureaucrats and noblemen, crowned by the p
ayment of £5000 (just for some out-of-pocket expenses) to the Persian Shah himse
lf, 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 n
eeds 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 i
t was just the royalty — nominal charge for the right to extract the natural res
ources — 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 oi
l fields — oil was considered to be the fuel of the future even then — D’Arcy ne
eded 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 governm
ent it was the Scotland-based "Burmah Oil" that funded D’Arcy — soon it became t
he 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. W
e’d recommend you to enter this name at the search system and look at the result
s.
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 colon
ial resources producers — induced the British Cabinet of Ministers to buy the ma
in 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 expropria
ted by the British government and thus, the latter acquired the full-cycled oil
production and refining and extracted the profits for the corresponding manufact
ure.
In reality British government acted as functionary, serious gentlemen with the p
rivate capital from the profitable companies haven’t ever disappeared. All the m
ore, during the period between the two world wars the company that became the "A
nglo-Iranian" one managed to achieve quite significant successes, going with the
times and thoroughly developing itself. The twentieth century was the century o
f oil and the "seven sisters" — seven leading Anglo-American oil companies, incl
uding the BP as of right — profiteered on that rather nicely.
By the way, it was the Italian post-war Prime Minister Enrico Mattei who introdu
ced the phrase "seven sisters" — he quite disliked these "sharks" and tried to d
efend 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 Ministe
r Mohammad Mosaddegh who paid a high price for his counter-action to the "Britis
h Petroleum" interests.
We should note that the oil business, banking capital, venture investments and t
he financial speculations represent the tightly intertwined teams of the financi
ers, architects of the New world order established after the Second World War. W
e may just glance at the biographies of American and British political establish
ment 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-Ame
rican "business-pool" pulled a trick and deprived dollar of the gold backing, "s
even sisters", including "British Petroleum" started to make decent money at the
world-scale money-from-nothing system that eventually led to the recent financi
al crisis. Of course, they were simultaneously investing into the alternative en
ergy sources and the "Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan" oil-pipeline, for that matter.
But since the 1980s — when the British authorities officially got rid of their l
ast 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 Nation
al 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 Am
oco — another "child" of theirs that was singled out in 1911 during the short-te
rmed U. S. authorities attempt to fight the monopolism — in the end of 1990s whe
n it became clear that it was not the oil-production revival in the USA on the a
genda of the day but yet another Eastern colonization (starting from Iraq). In 2
000 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 deve
loped oil production, refining and selling infrastructure).
Though, since recently it turned out to be dangerous to head this gigantic struc
ture. British aristocrat John Brown, member of House of Lords, Baron of Madingle
y, 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). Foll
owing the deaths of 15 workers at the refining facility in Texas and the leak fr
om 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 d
eprived 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 Roya
l 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 resignatio
n. However, taking his positions at the Citigroup financial group and the post a
t the Chartered Management Institute (recognized British centre for the internat
ional management training) into consideration, he would also find something to c
omfort himself with. He would have to leave the much-talked-about "Bilderberg Gr
oup". 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 Trad
e Organization in 1995.
Current crisis, catastrophe at the Mexican Gulf and the show trials over the Gol
dman Sachs tricksters may, from one hand, be the forerunners of the major change
s in life of the most famous Western oil company. From the other hand, they stil
l may turn out to be zilch. The essence lies too deep, you see.
By Marat Kunaev