[1] Aminoil was a consortium of independent companies, including Phillips, Ashland, and Sinclair, put together by Ralph Davies to bid on the Kuwait Neutral Zone concession.
[2] Aminoil's major interest was in Kuwait, which in 1948 granted the company a 60-year concession to explore for and extract oil and natural gas in the Kuwait “Neutral Zone”, with the agreement of the British authorities and neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
In 1970 it was bought by R. J. Reynolds Industries Inc for $56 million, bringing much new investment as the new parent company sought to strengthen Aminoil's competitive position, and be a stable source of fuel for its growing but troubled container shipping business, Sea-Land Industries.
[3] In 1982 a legal case, Government of Kuwait v. The American Independent Oil Company (AMINOIL), resolved outstanding issues.
At the time, Aminoil was the United States' second-largest independent petroleum exploration and production company with operations in California, Argentina, the North Sea and Indonesia.