The Last Oil

Over six decades, the gleaming fat rendered from the carcasses of hundreds of thousands of whales supplied the raw material demands for multinational corporations’ production of margarine and soap. The all-powerful industrialists’ suppliers were mainly Norwegian whalers. From the fat-rendering cauldrons that just after the turn of the century were fired up in South Georgia until the factory ship Kosmos IV anchored for the last time in Sandefjord in the late 1960s, whaling was to dominate and shape the development of financial markets, consumer goods and capitalism in Norway. This is a story about immense fortunes made and lost volatilely and branding thereof, but also the tale of a devastating biological tragedy. A merciless one-sided meeting between the earth’s largest animals, deadly effective hunting technology and the consumer industry. This is a multifaceted story about the industrialisation of a capital-deficient country, tax-evading shipowners and multinational fats moguls, but also about immeasurable sacrifices and losses. About Norwegian polar imperialism and global sales challenged by great powers and changing economic conditions. This is the story of “The Last Oil”