water in the mid-1970s and found oil. In the mid-1980s, Russian engineers realised that the Tengiz deposits, on the north-east shore of the Caspian, were among the world’s biggest. The light, honey-coloured crude was perfect for refining into petrol. But the Russian engineers were unable to erect rigs in 400 feet of water; a pipeline 282 feet below the surface fractured because of poor-quality welding, and an offshore platform was blighted by fires. Exploring beyond the shallow waters had been impossible because the Russians had never mastered horizontal or air drilling, which would mean that the oil, mixed with poisonous gas and under hydrostatic pressure, risked exploding. Two billion roubles spent since 1979 had been wasted. Conceding that their performance would not improve and fearing environmental damage, the Russians had acknowledged the obvious. Only Western technology could reach Tengiz’s 16 to 32 billion barrels of oil, trapped under half a mile of salt, 5,400 metres beneath the sea bed. Existing technology could recover between six and nine billion barrels from one of the world’s largest and deepest fields. Future technology could reach the remainder.
Despite the political, financial and engineering problems, Ken Derr, the chairman of Chevron, decided to gamble the corporation’s fortunes on the prospect. Chevron’s foundation, in its previous incarnation as Standard Oil of California (Socal), had been rooted in the discovery of oil just north of Los Angeles in 1879. The company’s glory years had taken place in Saudi Arabia. In 1938, Socal’s employees had found the first oil in the desert, and over the following 35 years the company, cooperating with Texaco in Aramco, had sporadically flourished, not least after it identified the giant Saudi oilfield Ghawar in the 1950s. But the corporation, one of the Seven Sisters, wilted after the Saudi government progressively nationalised Aramco’s oil wells. The 1980s were Chevron’s nadir, as inferior technology yielded a string of dry holes. Fearing that its future was at risk without new oil, in 1984 Chevron merged with Gulf, an independent oil company created by the Mellon family, operating in the Middle East. Ken Derr would admit that the merger had been a ‘cataclysmic event’, ‘just messy’ and ‘a paper nightmare’. The cumbersome sale of 1,800 oil wells owned by Gulf – one well was sold for $12 – spawned an expensive and stodgy bureaucracy.
Struggling with unprofitable oil and gas processing plants in America, and trying to reinvent Chevron’s image, Ken Derr decided to copy John Browne. Like all American oil companies, Chevron had been compelled by Congress’s restrictions to search for new oil overseas. The corporation’s experience had been unhappy. $1 billion had been lost in the Sudan, and millions of dollars had been wasted in unsuccessfully searching for oil in China. After Chevron abandoned production off the Californian coast, its earnings were the lowest of all the oil majors – 10 per cent compared to 23 per cent among the leaders, largely because it cost Chevron $6.18 to extract a barrel of oil, compared to Arco’s $3.65. The company decided to sell off its American assets and, by acquiring foreign oilfields, to redefine itself as a global company. In 1985 it had owned 3,400 oilfields in America. By 1992 only about 400 remained, but Chevron’s suffering had not ceased. The corporation’s fate was balanced on a knife-edge. Despite optimistic pledges, its oil reserves would slump in 1994 to 6.9 billion barrels, and production was also falling, by as much as 15 per cent a year. To save the corporation, Derr placed less importance on improving the quality of Chevron’s engineering than on emphasising ‘return on capital’ and ‘fixing the finances’. Like Browne, he understood the value of a considered gamble, and he chose to bet $2 billion on Kazakhstan initially.
Kazakhstan offered to reverse Chevron’s slow demise, although there remained the unresolved question of finding a route for a pipeline to transport the oil to a harbour. Desperate to secure new reserves, Derr decided to ignore that problem. In June 1990, after negotiating between rival factions in Moscow and Kazakhstan, Chevron signed an agreement with the Russian government to explore and produce in the Caspian region. The estimated cost over 40 years was $20 billion. Payments would be staggered, depending upon the success of the operation.
The Western oil men travelled noisily. The local workers in the Russian oilfields felt patronised by American prospectors seeking a Klondike bonanza. The knowledge that production in Russia had fallen by 9 per cent in January 1991 gave the Americans a discomforting brazenness. ‘We know what to do,’ one Western oil executive told a Russian minister. ‘We’re taking risks with our money, so don’t interfere with us.’ The explicit threat was that those employed by Amoco, Texaco, Chevron and other corporations would leave if the Russians caused them to be dissatisfied or made their risk excessive. But none of the foreign oil men understood the attachment Russians felt towards their ‘natural riches’, or the psychology of people emerging from 70 years of communist dictatorship. Instead of sympathising with their plight and satisfying Russian hunger for technology with an ‘option value’ agreement, the American oil majors insisted that any investment would need to meet American standards of due diligence. Irritation rankled among Russians already dismayed by the introduction of the market economy. Gorbachev’s supporters were criticised for succumbing to the capitalists’ greed for Russia’s raw materials. Chevron’s concession in Tengiz especially inflamed Russian fears about a ‘dirty deal’ by which ‘Russia will be plundered and sold for a mere song,’ while Chevron pocketed a $100 billion windfall. The news of Chevron producing oil at Tengiz’s well No. 8 in June 1991 gave Russia’s media the excuse to attack capitalists for exploiting Soviet resources under the guise of perestroika. Old nationalists spoke about the sale of the family silver. Regardless of Russia’s desperation, they urged, foreigners should be forbidden to profit from its wealth. Buffeted by the opposition and fighting for survival, Gorbachev capitulated. Instead of maintaining the slow conversion from communism towards a market economy, he switched back to secure the hardliners’ support. On 22 March 1991, Russia announced a 40 per cent tax on all oil exports.
Andy Hall was staggered. His $100 million investment was threatened by this unexpected turn. Unlike the oil majors, he could not easily bluster about leaving. To his relief, Gorbachev bowed to threats from the American administration on Chevron’s behalf and replaced the 40 per cent with a 3 per cent levy. Two weeks later, on 19 August, Gorbachev was arrested during an attempted coup. Released after three days, the president was too feeble to resolve the worsening oil crisis. Kazakhstan had declared independence, and in November 1991, as Chevron was planning to start exploration, President Nazarbayev arrived in London to meet BP experts to review the Chevron agreement. As Russia’s oil production fell to eight million barrels a day, the Kremlin feared that the country’s oil supply would shortly become crippled. Fearing chaos and unable to prevent his support splintering, Gorbachev suspended some oil exports on 15 November. He was too late. On 25 December the former mayor of Moscow Boris Yeltsin, a corrupt, alcoholic populist, became the new president of Russia.
Oil compounded the political pandemonium of Yeltsin’s inheritance. Laws were drafted to privatise state-controlled industries and property, but the first stage of dismantling the Soviet command economy was the overnight abolition of import controls on 2 January 1992 by Yegor Gaidar, the acting prime minister. Russia’s oil production fell to 7.5 million barrels a day, inflation rose to 740 per cent, and Russia’s bureaucracy was fragmenting as Gaidar, anticipating a counter-attack by the communists entrenched in the bureaucracy, decided to privatise Russia’s industries by giving stocks and shares to the managers and workers. In the oilfields, the managers, ignoring orders and laws, lost any incentive to maintain production, and seized their opportunity to grab the spoils. Yeltsin’s dilemma was profound. Russia’s economy was based on cheap oil, up to 47 per cent of which was regularly wasted during generation and heating. Although the government had increased the price paid for oil from 2 cents to 48 cents a barrel, the same oil was being resold in New York for $19 a barrel. In an unruly economy, Yeltsin’s officials were powerless to order local bosses to pay the oil workers, or to direct that oil be supplied to the refineries, or to command the oilfields to hand over the dollars earned from exports. While petrol was being sold in Moscow in vodka bottles and refineries were limiting production, Yeltsin floundered, issuing ineffectual decrees asserting state control over oil and gas production and exports.