Big Oil's Dirty Secrets
The Economist
8 May 2003
Even as it celebrates soaring profits-thanks to higher prices during the war-and soaring share prices, now war is over, the oil industry faces a new danger largely of its own creation. It will surprise nobody to learn that oil and ethics mix about as well as oil and water. But, just as the tobacco industry and Wall Street gained a false sense of security because for years they got away with well-known practices of an ethically shady nature, only to pay a hefty price later, so too oil's hour of reckoning may be approaching. There are several reasons, including a high-profile bribery scandal; the growing political sensitivity of the oil industry; changing attitudes to corporate governance; and some potentially explosive lawsuits.
The bribery scandal, which seems certain to grow larger as more details emerge, concerns the battle to win oil contracts in Kazakhstan. During the 1990s, several big oil firms fought for the right to exploit the oil riches of the region, including Chevron Texaco, on whose board Condoleezza Rice served prior to joining the Bush administration.