I began working on the oil industry when I started my doctoral thesis on the Peruvian oil industry in 1972. I am grateful to Alan Angell, Laurence Whitehead and Rosemary Thorp for their excellent supervision and to Malcolm Deas who, as one of my examiners in 1975, suggested that I should write a general book on the subject of Latin American oil.

Apart from my interview sources, acknowledgement is due to Rory Miller, Christopher Abel and Brian McBeth for their help on the 1920s; to Alan Peters and Fred Parkinson for help on the post-war environment; to Jorge Katz and Paul Cammack for help with the section on state companies; to Peter Alhadeff, Colin Lewis, Ed Early, Julio Fidel and Celia Szustermann for Argentina; to Laurence Whitehead and Manuel Contreras for Bolivia; to Charles Gedge, George Hawrylyshyn, Hari Bhat, Sue Cunningham and Getúlio de Carvalho for Brazil; to Malcolm Hoodless, Miguel Basañez, Manuel Tello, Andrés Viesca and Lief Adelson for Mexico; to Stan Rose for Peru; and to Dave Corkill and Norman Cox for Ecuador. I must also thank Seibke Hirst for her translations from Dutch (the other translations are mine) and Eileen Gregory for her secretarial help. Any errors which remain are entirely my own.