Crude Ambition: This is the story of power

The Cold War is over, oil is cheap, and everyone thinks energy crises are history. Then at 2 a.m. on August 2nd, 1990, a hundred thousand Iraqi troops roll into Kuwait and shatter the illusion. This is the episode where Saddam Hussein gambles on annexation, the world's dependence on the Persian Gulf snaps back into focus, and the first post-Cold War crisis turns out to be all about oil. Episod...

Saudi Arabia has had enough. This is the episode where the kingdom's oil revenues collapse from $119 billion to $26 billion, quota cheating tears OPEC apart, and the Saudis finally stop propping up the price and threaten to flood the market. Episode 36 of Crude Ambition follows the brutal price war of the mid-1980s and the question haunting every oil capital on earth: how low can it go?

The greatest oil boom in history ends with a billion-dollar shale project killed overnight and Colorado ghost towns sprouting weeds. This is the episode where the fever of thirty-four-dollar oil gives way to glut, conservation proves more powerful than anyone imagined, and OPEC watches helplessly as the world learns to use less. Episode 35 of Crude Ambition charts how the bust that followed the bo...

"We're going down" are the last words from inside the American embassy before the line goes dead. This is the episode where Iranian militants storm the compound, take fifty Americans hostage for 444 days, and the second oil shock spirals into full-blown geopolitical crisis. Episode 34 of Crude Ambition follows the hostage drama, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the moment the...

A single newspaper article mocking an exiled cleric sets Iran on fire. This is the episode where Ayatollah Khomeini's followers turn mourning into revolution, the Shah's regime crumbles in a relentless cycle of protest and bloodshed, and American intelligence insists the throne is safe right up until it isn't. Episode 33 of Crude Ambition tracks how the Iranian Revolution triggered the...

Cheap oil is dead, and the industrial world has to figure out how to survive without it. This is the episode where Japan reinvents its entire economy around conservation, France sends inspectors with thermometers into banks and offices to enforce temperature limits, and the West scrambles to break its addiction to Middle Eastern crude. Episode 32 of Crude Ambition follows Hydrocarbon Man's pai...

A building in Vienna quietly changes its nickname from "the Texaco Building" to "the OPEC Building," and that says everything. This is the episode where the oil exporters go from bit players to masters of the global economy, petroleum earnings explode from $23 billion to $140 billion, and the industrial world plunges into its worst recession since the war. Episode 31 of Crude A...

The embargo hits and the world loses its mind. This is the episode where oil prices explode 600 percent, panicked buyers bid against each other like their survival depends on it, and the age of cheap energy dies in a matter of weeks. Episode 30 of Crude Ambition plunges into the chaos of late 1973, when gas lines, fear, and the scramble for every last barrel reshaped the global economy overnight.

On the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, 222 Egyptian jets scream across the Suez Canal and the world changes overnight. This is the episode where the 1973 October War unleashes the Arab oil embargo, America discovers its surplus is gone, and petroleum becomes the most devastating weapon in the Middle East arsenal. Episode 29 of Crude Ambition takes you inside the crisis that shattered the postw...

The Shah throws a $200 million party at the ruins of Persepolis, and it's not just a celebration. It's a declaration. This is the episode where Britain abandons the Persian Gulf, America's surplus oil vanishes for good, and the balance of power tilts decisively from the companies to the countries sitting on top of the reserves. Episode 28 of Crude Ambition covers the hinge years when t...

Oil didn't just fuel the postwar world. It remade it entirely. This is the episode where coal loses its throne, oil consumption explodes five and a half times over in two decades, and an entirely new civilization built on plastics, highways, and chrome-finned cars roars to life. Episode 27 of Crude Ambition charts how cheap petroleum powered the economic miracles of Japan, Germany, and Western...

One man's arrogance lit the fuse that changed the oil world forever. This is the episode where a stubborn Jersey Standard chairman ignores every warning and slashes oil prices without telling a single producing nation, triggering a furious backlash that births OPEC in just five days flat. Episode 26 of Crude Ambition tracks the Cold War oil glut, Soviet price wars, and the Baghdad summit that...

The most powerful cartel in history was born because one executive cut prices without making a single phone call. This is the episode where a Venezuelan exile eating sardine sandwiches in the Library of Congress reverse-engineers the Texas Railroad Commission, a glamorous journalist introduces two revolutionaries over a Coke at the Cairo Hilton, and the CIA dedicates exactly four lines of a 43-pag...

Two fading empires launch a secret war to save themselves - and an American president destroys them with a phone call and a currency threat. This is the episode where a drugged-up British prime minister mistakes an Egyptian colonel for Mussolini, Israel invades the Sinai as a staged pretext, and Eisenhower threatens to crash the British pound unless the tanks turn around. Episode 24 of Crude Ambit...

A 70-year-old prime minister governs from his bed in pajamas, fake-faints in parliament with a wink, and tells an American diplomat that a fox's tail is longer than its body. This is the episode where one Scottish accountant's refusal to split profits 50-50 nearly tips Iran into Soviet hands, the CIA plays Luck Be a Lady Tonight before a midnight coup, and the British Empire sails away fro...

A Saudi king discovers his American oil tenants are paying more to the IRS than to his own treasury. A Texas welder fixes a palace toilet and accidentally wins a multi-million dollar oil concession. And the stingiest billionaire alive washes his own underwear by hand, then gambles $9.5 million on a patch of empty desert that makes him the richest man on earth. Episode 22 of Crude Ambition traces h...

Europe is freezing in the dark, coal has failed, and the only thing standing between Western civilization and collapse is oil buried under Saudi sand. This is the episode where corporate giants rip up a 20-year-old contract using a wartime legal trick, a paranoid billionaire holds the entire deal hostage from a Lisbon hotel suite, and twelve furious executives share one bottle of flat champagne at...

In the middle of World War Two, America's top geologist looks at the Saudi desert and declares the age of American oil dominance is over. This is the episode where presidents draw maps on napkins, kings sleep in tents on warships, and a bureaucrat tries to nationalize an entire oil company to stop the British from stealing it. FDR gives Ibn Saud his spare wheelchair. Churchill insults the king...

What if the war could have ended nine months early - and all it took was a few hundred thousand gallons of gas? This is the episode where you learn that World War Two wasn't won by generals - it was won by refineries, truck drivers, and a French engineer who figured out how to rewrite the chemical structure of gasoline. From Britain's five-week countdown to total fuel collapse, to Patton's tanks r...

This conversation explores Japan's strategic pursuit of oil during World War II, focusing on the logistical challenges they faced in transporting captured oil from the Dutch East Indies back to Japan. It highlights the catastrophic failures in their supply chain and resource management, leading to their eventual defeat. The discussion also draws parallels between historical events and contempo...

This conversation explores the critical role of synthetic fuel and logistics in World War II, focusing on Nazi Germany's reliance on IG Farben's hydrogenation process to fuel its war machine. It contrasts Germany's approach to resource acquisition with Japan's, highlighting the significance of oil in military strategy. The discussion also delves into the American connection with St...

This conversation explores Japan's path to war in the 1930s, focusing on the critical role of oil in military strategy and the decisions leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It highlights the complexities of Admiral Yamamoto's character, the diplomatic struggles between the U.S. and Japan, and the strategic failures that defined the early stages of World War II in the Pacific.

Episode 15 explores the historical journey of oil discovery in the Arabian Peninsula, focusing on the unconventional figures who defied expert consensus to uncover vast oil reserves. It highlights the roles of Major Frank Holmes, King Ibn Saud, and others who navigated the complexities of geopolitics and economic desperation in the early 20th century, ultimately reshaping the global energy landsca...

This conversation explores the tumultuous history of the oil industry, focusing on the transition from chaotic competition to organized cartels, the rise of nationalism in oil-rich countries, and the significant events in Persia and Mexico that reshaped the global oil landscape. It highlights the failures of corporate dominance and the emergence of national control over oil resources, emphasizing...

This episode explores the dramatic events surrounding the discovery of the East Texas oil field during the Great Depression, focusing on the characters of Dad Joiner and H.L. Hunt, the chaos of the oil boom, and the subsequent government intervention that transformed the oil industry.