The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

things to say about him. “If I wanted a neighbor, Pincus Green would be the perfect neighbor,” U.S. Marshal Ken Hill told me.
    In the 1960s Green traded mainly in chrome ore—which is used to make stainless steel—and copper for Philipp Brothers. Both metals were found in Persia, as Iran was more commonly called at the time. For this reason Green frequently traveled between New York and Iran, where he became friendly with Ali Rezai. The Rezai family were powerful and influential owner-operators of chrome and copper mines. Ali, who was known as “Mr. Steel” on account of his family’s links to the industry, later became a member of the Majlis, the Iranian senate. More important, he was a friend of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. “Pinky was very, very close to Ali Rezai,” one Iran expert told me.
    The connection to Rezai opened the doors to Iran’s economic and political elite, and this access would prove to be of exceptional importance. It led Green right to the center of power in Persia, namely, the shah himself. “This relationship allowed Pinky to develop a relationship with the National Iranian Oil Company,” Rich told me. Rich himself met the shah years later as a neighbor in St. Moritz.
    The most important player in Rich’s oil dealings was Parviz Mina. When Rich first met him, he was responsible for international relations on the administrative board of NIOC. Mina was reputedly exceptionally intelligent and highly competent in technical issues. Tony Benn, the British secretary of state for energy at the time, called him “brilliant.” 5 Mina had earned a PhD in petroleum engineering at the University of Birmingham in Great Britain. He had been working in the Iranian oil industry since the fall of Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s nationalist prime minister, in 1953. He had excellent contacts to the other oil-producing nations and was a member of the OPEC Long Term Strategy Committee for two years.
Crude Middleman
     
    When I asked him about the pipeline business, Rich only stared at me for a wordless moment. It seemed he was considering whether or not he should admit to this secret. He then confessed to me that the pipeline was indeed a milestone of his career—“a very, very important business,” as Rich put it. Thanks to the relationship with oil director Parviz Mina and “Mr. Steel” Ali Rezai, he started it in 1973. Rich can no longer say exactly how much oil he traded in the beginning. He still knows that he was able to expand the business with Iran over the years up to 8 to 10 million tons per year (approximately 60 to 75 million barrels). “People were reluctant to use the pipeline because the oil had passed through Israel,” Rich told me. Whoever did official business with Israel ran the risk of being blacklisted by Arab nations. “Still, the pipeline was there. I decided that it was attractive and gradually introduced it.” Rich secretly transported the politically controversial oil—some of it in Israeli tankers—across the Mediterranean to Spain, Rich’s adopted country. In order to disguise the oil’s origin, the tankers sometimes stopped in Romania. The Communist country, since 1965 ruled by the dictator Nicolae Ceauescu, was the only Eastern Bloc nation that had not broken diplomatic relations with Israel in the wake of the Six-Day War.
    There was a reason for such discretion. As mentioned earlier, Spain’s fascist head of state, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, had consistently refused to officially recognize Israel, but he was very interested in obtaining oil. Spain had an incredible thirst for oil as a result of the nation’s industrialization coupled with the economic boom of the “Spanish miracle” in the 1960s. As is often the case, pragmatism usually wins out over ideology in such situations. “Spain bought the oil—even though it had no diplomatic relations with Israel,” an insider explained. “Politics,” he said laughingly and shook his head.
    As the oil was relatively cheap, Rich could offer it at prices that were lower than those of the competition. For customers who might have been concerned about the oil’s Israeli connection, this was a decisivefinancial incentive. “There was a big price advantage,” Rich explained. “The oil was cheaper because of the much cheaper freight. The transport of Iranian crude through the pipeline was much cheaper than going all the way around Africa.” A metric ton of Iranian oil cost21 in Eilat. The same oil