The petroleum industry is known not only for its vital role in the modern world, but also its lucrative implications. Even in cartoons, the trope of striking "black gold" can often be seen--followed by scenes where the cartoon character who came across the oil is swimming in gold. In the section "The Balck Curse of Petroleum" Galeano explores the underhanded means that have put U.S. and European based multinational fuel corporations into the profitable throne they sit on today.  

when talking about the petroleum industry, Galeano refers to the whole affair and its main beneficiaries (big wigs) as a cartel. And like a cartel, the petroleum industries’ leaders use all kinds of tactics from coercion, to coups, using their money to put into power people who would benefit them and expand their power. And Though the price of petroleum production in the united states is higher than in latin America, the U.S. sees greater profit. In countries like Mexico and Colombia for example, the countries themselves are not the sole proprietors to the source, thus they have to buy the crude oil from U.S. corporations at higher prices than the world price, and have to buy in dollars. 

When countries have tried to take their resources into their own hands by building refineries, the multinationals lashed out. In Uruguay, they were punished by having to be managed by a multinational—dictated in whom they could buy from and for what price. In Brazil, the state was essentially tricked into thinking they had less deposits than they actually did, making them believe they had to be dependent on foreign multinationals. Wars have been waged and Latin American lives and interests have been compromised for the benefit of corporations who add minimally to the general population and reap all the benefits.

In the documentary, "when two worlds collide" we see more direct implications of the oil trade on the indigenous population and natural resources of Peru. Communities have been displaced, and lands that were ancestrally theirs were either taken from them by the state due to coercion and corruption, or were poisoned. One of the beginning scenes shows a group of people surveying a land that is black with pollution. In this instance, the government invited there foreign companies to the land in a guise to modernize the state--however, this comes at the cost of indigenous population who are commonly marginalized--and in this instance even demonized by the state. In one clip of the documentary, we can see the President talking about the right to the land and how the that land does not belong to one group (native populations), but the whole of Peru.

Pablo Neruda also weighed in on the role and impact of petroleum and depicts the foreign industry as an insatiable beast that consumes. This beast digs, drills and consumes, and like a beast wild with hunger, lashes out and even kills if it means getting what it wants. It serves as a scathing complement to both "When two worlds collide" and Galeano's text; taking about the death that has accompanied the industry while also commenting on the impact of the Latin American people.