Blowout

This chapter’s title refers to the tension between the scientific research linking major carbon producers (like Big Oil companies) to global warming and the incessant demand for more oil drilling. At the center of this tension, at least in this chapter, lies Rex Tillerson, the fearless ExxonMobil CEO. Amid recession, Tillerson led ExxonMobil into a golden age, boasting $6 billion quarterly profits in 2010. The company was also on the brink of securing unprecedented new deals for access to billions of barrels of proven oil reserves in Russia.

At the height of this success also came catastrophe. On April 20, 2010, news broke of an explosion on a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig, known as Deepwater Horizon, was consumed in flames, and the accident claimed the lives of 11 crewmen. Though Deepwater Horizon was operated by British Petroleum (BP), one of ExxonMobil’s biggest rivals, the optics weren’t good for Big Oil. As global debates waged on about the environmental impacts of the oil and gas industry, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and consequent spill was a major setback for Big Oil companies desperately trying to avoid any negative press. In fact, the US government’s final assessment of the incident was a searing indictment to all involved, as all parties had “cut corners to save both time and money, increasing the chance of catastrophe” (86).

In the aftermath of the spill, Tillerson and other major oil executives stayed away from the incident, save for a few obligatory remarks citing “thoughts and prayers.” Rick Perry, who at the time was governor of Texas, attributed the incident to an act of God, something unpreventable and altogether mysterious. Eventually, when Tillerson and other oil executives were called to congressional subcommittees, Big Oil was left mostly unscathed, as BP alone took the brunt of the aftermath. Yet, only 10 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, an old ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured in the Gulf of Guinea, near a series of coastal villages in Nigeria. Without the outrage or spotlight of the US media, Tillerson once again issued a boilerplate statement on the incident.

Maddow transports us from tense congressional hearings on the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill to Equatorial Guinea, where Teodorin Obiang, the country’s eventual president, accumulated absurd excesses and extravagances. At the time, Obiang was officially the minister of agriculture and forestry, and yet he was living a life of absolute luxury, buying a 16-acre mansion in Malibu, globetrotting in a $38.5 million private jet, and throwing lavish parties every chance he got. It wasn’t long before suspicion started mounting, as the Justice Department suggested that extortion of public funds must have been the corrupt origin of his wealth. With oil wells planted off the coast of his native Equatorial Guinea, there was only one logical explanation for the actual source of his money: “This was oil money. Spigoted into the Obiang accounts by Marathon, Hess, and Rex Tillerson’s ExxonMobil, among others” (98).

The ninth chapter continues the story of Equatorial Guinea, a nation riddled with corruption and poverty while its president basked in a life of luxury. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have monitored the situation in Equatorial Guinea, but no real or lasting change has ever taken effect. In fact, the chapter title refers to the “practical realities” of doing business in developing countries, nations whose lack of infrastructure leads to nepotism and a closely connected network of officials and businesspeople. Out of these “practical realities,” however, proposals to make changes to the status quo would emerge. Specifically, a 2009 act proposed by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) would require “companies in the extractive industries to make an annual report of all payments they made to foreign governments for the purpose of ‘commercial development of oil, natural gas, and minerals’” (117). But the power of Big Oil and Gas would eventually prevail, due to the efforts of executives such as Rex Tillerson and lobbyists who were dispatched all over Capitol Hill to argue against the proposed legislation.