This contract was initially subscribed with the Basic Resources company, founded in the 1960s by John D. Park, one of the lawyers that worked in the Guatemalan Oil Code after the counter-revolution in 1954.

Basic Resources started exploring possible oil wells during the 1970s and began the commercial production in the 1980s, in the middle of the Guatemala Civil War.

[5] By 1993, Basic Resources had a refinery setup in La Libertad, and an oil pipeline all the way to the Xan wells in Laguna del Tigre.

However, in the mid 1990s, the new environmental laws and civilian groups start complaining that there is negative impacts from the oil activity in Laguna del Tigre.

Finally, towards the late 1990s, Basic Resources was bought by the American company Union Pacific, and then sold again in 2001, for US$102,5 million to the private French society Perenco.