If the position of the oil companies and their parent governments appeared highly insecure in 1941, apparent stability had returned by 1955. A part of this stability depended upon the ‘Pax Americana’, for the USA had emerged from its pre-war isolation to take over the leadership of what came to be known as the ‘Free World’. As a result, although the countries of Latin America enjoyed considerable attention from the USA during the war years, they came to be regarded increasingly as peripheral after 1945 when Washington's relations with Europe and the Middle East came to take priority. Moreover, the full importance of the oil discoveries in the Middle East became increasingly clear in the decade after 1945, and the attention of the major companies was also directed eastwards.

For the major oil-exporting countries, the 1942–55 period fell into two distinct phases. Until around 1948 the oil market was tight; the war had increased demand for oil and destroyed capacity, and the immediate post-war reconstruction also sharply increased world demand. Demand continued to rise after 1950 but could now easily be met from the prolific oilfields of Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; even the boycott of Iranian oil between 1950 and 1953 (which followed the nationalisation of Anglo-Iranian) barely affected the international market. As a consequence, the power of producer governments – considerable in the 1940s, when the Venezuelan government was able to pioneer a major shift in profit-sharing arrangements between government and company – was far less in the 1950s.