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British Imperialism and Oil : a History of British Petroleum,1901‐2016

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British Imperialism and Oil : a History of British Petroleum,1901‐2016 Hobbs, Graham (2019) British Imperialism and Oil : A History of British Petroleum,1901‐2016. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/32458 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. British Imperialism and Oil: A History of British Petroleum, 1901-2016 Graham Hobbs Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2019 Department of Development Studies SOAS, University of London 1 Abstract This thesis presents a history of British Petroleum (BP), from its origins in 1901 until 2016, in the context of the history of British imperialism as a whole. It draws on Marxist studies of imperialism and the international political economy of oil. BP was a company of Britain’s empire. Its history begins in the “classical” age of imperialism. Its concessions were the products not just of inter-imperial rivalries but of inter-imperial alliances too. The change in the relative strengths of Britain and America necessitated a redistribution of control over Middle Eastern oil. The thesis charts this redivision. After the company struck oil in Alaska in 1969, BP’s production, sales and assets Americanised. To minimise the political risks to its US assets, BP sought to limit its ownership by foreign states (in particular, Britain and Kuwait) and to expand its ownership by Americans. At the start of the 1990s, the company again Americanised its shareholder base and, at the turn of the millennium, it acquired two American oil companies. It did so, in part, to protect its assets outside America, via the US state. In terms of ownership and a measure of control, BP became bi-national, Anglo-American. The thesis examines the relations between BP and the British and American states in terms of Marxist theories of the state. In terms of structuralist mechanisms and instrumentalist processes of colonisation, BP was closer to the British than the American state. And the company received more support from the former than the latter in the international arena. Since 2003, Russia has been BP’s largest source of hydrocarbons and BP has been Russia’s largest foreign producer. The thesis examines BP’s partnerships with Russian “oligarchs” and then with the Russian state, in particular, its equity stake and positions on the board of state-controlled Rosneft. 3 Table of Contents List of tables 6 List of acronyms 7 1. Introduction 9 2. Marxist theories of imperialism and of the international political economy of oil 27 Part I. Marxist theories of imperialism 28 Part II. A conceptualisation of the state 43 Part III. Marxist accounts of the international political economy of oil 46 3. BP: From colonial origins to the 1970s nationalisations 61 Part I: Oil production and markets before WWII 62 3.1 Oil production before WWII: Concessions in Britain’s empire in the Middle East 62 3.1.1 Iran 62 3.1.2 Iraq 67 3.1.3 Kuwait, Qatar and Abu Dhabi 70 3.2 Markets before WWII: Selling at home and in the British Empire 72 Part II: Oil production and markets, 1945-1979 75 3.3 Oil production, 1945-1979 75 3.3.1 The pre-WWII Middle East concessions 75 3.3.2 New concessions in the British empire 79 Nigeria 79 Libya 79 3.4 Oil production, 1970s: Loss of Middle Eastern and African concessions 81 3.5 Markets, 1945-1969: Selling to Western Europe and other oil companies 84 3.6 Markets, 1970s: Entry into America 86 4 4. Americanisation of BP and its limits 89 Part I: 1969-1997 90 4.1 Incremental acquisition of Standard Oil of Ohio 90 4.2 Americanisation of operations 91 4.3 Privatisations and Kuwait’s shareholding 94 4.4 Horton’s Americanisation 97 4.5 Americanisation of ownership 98 4.6 Summary and conclusions 99 Part II: 1998-2016 101 4.7 Takeovers of two more American companies: Amoco and ARCO 101 4.8 De-Americanisation of production, Americanisation of fixed assets and sales 104 4.9 The company’s nationality (if any) 107 4.10 Relationships between BP and the British and American states I 110 4.10.1 An instrumentalist mechanism: Colonisation 110 4.10.2 Structural mechanisms 115 4.11 Relationships between BP and the British and American states II 118 4.11.1 ExxonMobil and the American state 119 4.11.2 BP and the British state 120 4.12 Summary and conclusions 125 5. BP in post-Soviet Russia 127 5.1 The Russian oil industry 128 5.2 Foreign energy companies in the upstream Russian oil industry 131 5.3 BP in post-Soviet Russia 138 5.3.1 BP acquires stakes in Sidanco and Rusia Petroleum 138 5.3.2 The battle for Sidanco 139 5.3.3 The creation of TNK-BP 141 5.3.4 An unsuccessful BP-Rosneft exploration programme 142 5.3.5 TNK-BP loses Kovykta to Gazprom 143 5.3.6 A TNK-BP civil war 145 5.3.7 Planned BP-Rosneft alliance blocked by AAR 146 5.3.8 The death of TNK-BP and the birth of a BP-Rosneft alliance 148 6. Conclusion 151 Appendix 1. BP’s directors since 1995 162 Appendix 2. Foreign energy companies in the upstream Russian natural gas industry, 2000-14 175 Bibliography 179 5 List of Tables 3.1. Geographical distribution of the company’s main refined oil product sales, 1928 & 1930-37 3.2. Geographical distribution of the company’s crude oil production or sources, 1946-79 3.3. Geographical distribution of the company’s crude oil sources, 1970 & 1980 4.1 Crude oil production, 1975-97 4.2 Refined products sales volumes, 1970-97 4.3 Fixed assets: Property, plant and equipment: Net book value, 1983-97 4.4 Domicile of (beneficial) shareholders, 1984-97 4.5 BP and Amoco operations in 1997 4.6 ARCO’s operations outside Alaska compared to those of BP and Amoco combined in 1998 4.7 Crude oil and natural gas production, 1990-2016 4.8 Refined products sales volumes, 1993-2016 4.9 Fixed assets: Property, plant and equipment: Net book value, 1995-2016 4.10 Domicile of (beneficial) shareholders, 1997-2016 4.11 Nationalities of board of directors, 1995-2017 4.12 BP-British state colonisations 4.13 BP-American state colonisations 4.14 Contribution of BP to crude oil and natural gas production in UK and US 4.15 Contribution of BP’s domestic operations to GFCF and employment in UK and US 5.1 Production of hydrocarbons in Russia by foreign energy companies, 2000-2014 6 List of acronyms AAR: Alfa Group, Access Industries and Renova AIOC: Anglo-Iranian Oil Company APOC: Anglo-Persian Oil Company BP: British Petroleum CEO: Chief executive officer CFP: Compagnie Française des Petroles CIA: Central Intelligence Agency CNPC: China National Petroleum Corporation DWSR: Dollar-Wall Street Regime (Peter Gown) EC: European Community EEC: European Economic Community EGS: Eastern and General Syndicate EPSA: Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement ERAP: Entreprise de Recherches et d’Activités Pétrolières ESGC: East-Siberian Gas Company EU: European Union FT: Financial Times FTC: Federal Trade Commission G7: Group of Seven GAM: Gerakan Aceh Movement or “Free Aceh Movement” GFCF: gross fixed capital formation IMF: International Monetary Fund INOC: Iraq National Oil Company IPC: International Petroleum Cartel (Cyrus Bina) IPC: Iraq Petroleum Company IPO: Initial public offering KIO: Kuwait Investment Office KOC: Kuwait Oil Company MEND: Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NGDUs: Oil and gas production administrations NVN: Nizhnevartovskneftegas OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ONGC: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries PSA: Production Sharing Agreement PTA: Prisoner Transfer Agreement RAF: Royal Air Force Sinopec: China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Sohio: Standard Oil of Ohio TNK: Tiumen Oil Company TPC: Turkish Petroleum Company UN: United Nations UNCITRAL: United Nations Commission on International Trade Law VCNG: Verkhnechonskneftegaz WTO: World Trade Organization 7 8 1. Introduction This thesis presents a history of British Petroleum (BP), from its origins in 1901 until 2016, in the context of the history of British imperialism as a whole. It draws on Marxist theories of imperialism, the state and accounts of the international political economy of oil. The argument in a nutshell BP was a company of Britain’s empire. Its oil concessions were in Britain’s empire. And its principal pre-WW2 markets were in Britain itself and in its empire. The company acquired its concessions in pre-existing spaces of Britain’s empire. But the discovery of oil in a territory, or the prospect of its discovery, and BP’s acquisition of a concession to exploit oil in a territory, magnified the territory’s value to British capitalism. This was because oil was becoming the lifeblood of capitalism. The British state thus did everything within its powers to control access to sources of oil, and to help British oil companies, principally BP, first to acquire concessions, and then to protect those concessions.
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