Small Business in the Peruvian Oil Industry: Lobitos Oilfields Limited Before 1934

Abstract

For much of the twentieth century, the petroleum industry of Peru was dominated by the International Petroleum Company (or IPC), a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Yet IPC never obtained a monopoly. Other firms, such as Lobitos Oilfields Limited, a concern founded by British merchants, produced a significant amount of Peru's output. In this article, Professor Miller examines Lobitos's development from the time of the company's founding in 1900 through the pivotal year of 1934. Although the fortunes of Lobitos were closely linked to the pertubations of the international market and the shifting policies of the Peruvian government, corporate management enjoyed an unusual flexibility not only because the firm's interests were sometimes identical with those of its powerful rival IPC, but also because its merchant founders had established a vast trading network throughout South America. These additional factors allowed Lobitos to survive as a relatively small, unintegrated independent in an age of giant, fully-integrated multinationals.

Major Trends in the Historiography of the Latin American Oil Industry

“…66 A later contribution to the historiography was Rory Miller's 1982 article on the development of the Peruvian oil sector by the British fi rm Lobitos Oilfi elds Limited before the era of IPC dominance. 67 In 1994, David F. C. Myers prepared his dissertation on the evolution of the Peruvian oil sector, supplementing the text with statistical information. 68 In 2008, Margarita Guerra Martinière edited a general history of Peruvian oil from the era of the Incan empire to the twenty-fi rst century.…”

Surf-for-Development: An Exploration of Program Recipient Perspectives in Lobitos, Peru

“…Lobitos is now, and has historically been, primarily an oil-extraction zone. Once the largest producer in Peru, it was initially run by an independent British firm in the early 1900s, then sold to Standard Oil of New Jersey, then nationalized in the 1960, and is now currently owned by a Chinese firm (Miller, 1982). Many Lobiteños migrated there to work service jobs during the early oil industry phase when firms actually developed settlements.…”

Escape the lion cage: Social networks by catch zones of small-scale fisheries in the oil settlement of Lobitos (Peru)

“…The northern coast of Peru is characterized by having both the oldest petroleum industry (Miller, 1982) and the most productive industrial fishery (Salas et al, 2007) Chile and Peru are associated with the most productive industrial fisheries in South America, accounting for almost 90 percent of catches in the region (FAO, 2000). In the case of Peru, this is predominantly an industrial fleet, whose main catch is anchovy 1 (Engraulis ringens), despite the near collapse of the stock in 1972 (Agüero, 1992, Boerema & Gulland, 1973Csirke, 1980;Salas, Chuenpagdee, et.al., 2007).…”