Carl Johan von Seth: the Judgment of the oil industry has already fallen

1997 was the oil industry, an industry with glowing self-confidence.

”No guts, no glory”, the name of Lundin, who this year engaged in a bold and fatal adventure in the southern Sudan.

Several of the international oljejättarna were at this time among the world's ten most highly valued listed company. The discovery of new oil reserves was seen in most of the countries still remains as a lottery prize.

the Climate was there. But its presence was hardly any noticeable threat to corporate growth and profits.

in just over 20 years later. First, the economy has changed. Amazon, listed precisely in 1997, is now the world's third largest company. Together with companies like Google and chinese Tencent has the petat down the oil industry from the list of the largest companies.

secondly, there has been a small kunskapsrevolution around the oil. Since the mid-1990s, it has only little research regarding intense on the toxic link between natural resources and poverty and war.

the Relationship is now seen as uncontroversial. The oil is no blessing which spreads the prosperity and social harmony. On the contrary, it is almost always a pest. In their tracks, leaving the political and economic decay and civil war. What we know now.

currently, in the balance sheets. And the oil companies are no longer so cocky. The realization is spreading among investors that their days are numbered.

the Head of state saudi electricity company Saudi Aramco called it recently, a ”perceptionskris”. But to wash away the oil förlorarstämpel will be difficult.

A concrete expression of this is the Norwegian government's new proposal to allow the country's large oil fund to dismantle parts of its holdings in the oil industry. After the announcement last Friday, many of the companies ' shares. The fund will, however, retain shares in big fossilbolag changing.

An example is Shell, which is now talking about becoming a world leader in the supply of electricity. 1997 had the strategy been perceived as a joke.

the trend that the oil industry will be brought before the court. Prosecutors in New York began in the fall, a lawsuit against the giant Exxon, who is accused of a systematic cover-up of the company's insights on global warming.

the Project Climate Case Chart at columbia university lists 23 similar lawsuits against the company outside the united states. Many more cases are ongoing within the country. But where the legal situation also proved tricky. Even if the judgment of the industry already has fallen on a general level, the individual cases are complex.

if the expected indictment of Lundin, as regards involvement in the following crimes.

a country like Sudan is extremely vulnerable to separatism and armed conflicts linked to the oil is, however, clear. Lundintopparnas surprise over the bloody disaster that the prosecutor is trying to tie them to the either due to ignorance or a special kind of naive cynicism.

Ian Lundin: ”How can two people cause a war?”

Read more: This is the case of Lundin Petroleum on the