Season 1
8 episodes · 1992
1Our Plan
The discovery of petroleum gives rise to a new global industry. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil grows into a monopoly. Muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell pulls back the curtain and reveals inconvenient truths about the robber baron.
2Empires of Oil
Oil is struck in Sumatra. Henri Deterding of Royal Dutch Petroleum and Marcus Samuel of Shell join forces and compete against Standard Oil. Oil is struck in Texas. Winston Churchill recognizes the strategic value of oil on the eve of World War I.
3The Black Giant
Standard Oil's Walter 'The Boss' Teagle squares off against Calouste 'Mr. Five Percent' Gulbenkian, gatekeeper to Mideast oil. C.M. 'Dad' Joiner and Doc Lloyd strike oil in east Texas, sparking a boom that brings government regulation to the industry.
4War and Oil
The key but often overlooked role that oil played in World War II is examined and discussed by war veterans and military historians.
5Crude Diplomacy
Mideast oil is declared the greatest prize in history, but a prize not easily won. Participants and historians discuss the wooing of Saudi Arabia's Ibn Saud, the creation of Aramco, and the postwar reality that petroleum is political.
6Power to the Producers
The story of oil in the 1950s and '60s. Italy's Enrico Mattei challenges the 'Seven Sisters.' Oil diplomacy in an increasingly volatile Middle East. The creation of OPEC in 1960. Cheap oil fuels America's car culture and suburban sprawl.
7The Tinderbox
The tumultuous years 1971 through 1991 saw shifting power in the oil industry as OPEC commandeered the driver's seat, sparking a global search for new oil sources. 'Oil as a weapon' results in the gas shortages of 1973 and '79.
8The New Order of Oil
Is oil a 'sunset industry'? A galvanized environmentalist movement and government regulation pose challenges to the oil industry. The oil industry presses ahead trusting in its customers' continuing love affair with their automobiles.