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Random House Books has acquired one of the first books on the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, Spills and Spin: The Inside Story of BP by Reuters oil-industry reporter Tom Bergin.
Senior editor Silvia Crompton bought world rights to the title through Maggie Hanbury of The Hanbury Agency. She said: "I'm delighted to be publishing this inside account of the BP oil spill, which was the biggest news story of 2010 and continues to make the headlines. Tom had unrivalled access to many of the key players during the crisis and afterwards, but he is also able to set the disaster in a broader context to explain precisely why it happened. It's a gripping read and a cautionary tale."
The book will build up to the April 2010 spill by taking in the previous 30 years of the company, explaining how BP survived privatisation and the oil-price crash of the late 1980s and went on to become a market leader again. Bergin also looks at the decisions made both at this time and around the time of the crisis, and how they all fed into the events of last year.
Random House Books will publish in trade paperback and e-book in July 2011, with a mass-market paperback edition to follow in 2012.
Bergin has reported on the energy industry for more than 12 years, and before that worked as an oil broker. He lives in south-west London.