The King of Oil

Ammann, a Swiss journalist, wrote the biography of Marc Rich with Rich's cooperation, including extended interviews. Rich created the modern oil trading business, was indicted in 1983 on tax evasion and on trading with Iran during the hostage crisis, spent seventeen years as a fugitive in Switzerland, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton on his last day in office in 2001.

The business material is the substance. Rich created the spot market for crude oil, which had previously been controlled entirely by the major oil companies through long-term contracts, and this single change altered the industry's structure permanently. His method combined willingness to trade with counterparties others avoided, including Iran, apartheid South Africa, Cuba and the Soviet Union; superior information gathered through relationships built over years; the willingness to take physical delivery and logistical risk; and access to financing that let him hold positions others could not.

Ammann documents specific trades including the Iranian oil that continued through the hostage crisis and the South African supply during the embargo, and Rich's position that a trader's function is to move goods from where they are to where they are needed regardless of politics. The pardon receives substantial treatment including the role of Rich's ex-wife's political donations.

The book was written with Rich's cooperation and is sympathetic. Ammann accepts Rich's framing of his own conduct more readily than an independent account would. The moral question of trading with sanctioned regimes is raised and not pressed. The account of how the spot market was created and of the specific mechanics of commodity trading is what makes it worth reading.