British oil companies British Petroleum (BP) and Shell played an active political and economic role in post-independence Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Two events – the Nigerian civil war and the struggle for Rhodesian independence – underscore the persistence of this influence. Decisions taken on the ground in both cases were not done so under the control of BP and Shell headquarters however, but rather of their local subsidiary companies. This article shows how these subsidiaries often acted based on what they deemed were their own best interests rather than in the interests of the mother corporation or of the governing authorities of British foreign policy. The influence of oil companies in Africa is as such much less direct and more complex than we may have previously thought.