Oil Politics in Venezuela during the López Contreras Administration (1936–1941)

When the Venezuelan dictator, Juan Vincente Gómez, died on 17 December 1935, after ruling Venezuela with an iron fist for 27 years, an outburst of popular unrest and nationalistic fervour was unleashed against the foreign oil companies operating on Venezuelan soil. The dominant oil interests in Venezuela at the time were Royal Dutch Shell, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the Gulf Oil Company. There were several smaller companies such as British Controlled Oilfields, a British state-owned company with a network of Venezuelan affiliates, and the Socony Vacuum Company, a New York-based company which was a significant latecomer. It was the first three aforementioned companies, however, that constituted the Big Three.1The oil companies were associated in the popular mind with the odious Gómez dictatorship and partly for this reason became the object of the people's wrath. Yet there were also practical economic and social reasons for the popular feeling against the companies. The latter paid low wages, provided miserable housing and social amenities for their workers and discriminated against Venezuelans in their employment practices.2For more than a year after the dictator's death Venezuela was in the throes of popular unrest.