During the 1980s the world's non-government oil companies eroded more than US$400 billion of shareholders' wealth. This amount is more than the national GDP of all but 11 individual countries and is equivalent to the entire market value of half the current industry participants. If the industry had kept pace with the sharemarket returns of average companies, the additional wealth would have been sufficient to buy Royal Dutch/Shell or ExXon five times over. Looked at another way, the value erosion is equivalent to $100 million per day for a decade. Coping with crisis is nothing new for the international oil industry. Since its beginnings in rural Pennsylvania in 1859, the industry has been characterised by tumultuous global expansion, periodic price dislocations and frequent political crises (Exhibit A). Rumours of the death of the industry have been a feature of this business in nearly every period of its history. But, from early government intervention to the advent of nuclear power, such rumours have proved to be exaggerated. Many of the companies that were household names at the turn of the century remain household names today--indeed they rank as some of the world's largest economic entities.