Oil is the key commodity powering the whole of the current international economic order. Securing unfettered access to oil supplies has become a vital national interest. The struggle to preserve these interests has inevitably played out on the global stage. The past ten years have witnessed the increasing importance of emerging economies to oil production. China has become the world's largest importer of oil and second largest consumer and Chinese National Oil Companies (NOCs) have gained growing international presence. In parallel, Beijing has exerted intensive diplomatic efforts to promote China's oil interests internationally. This book examines Chinese NOCs' quest for oil overseas, focusing primarily on two of the world's top emerging oil producing regions: Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Years of research and hours of interviews conducted by the author have resulted in an in-depth and unique account. This provides valuable insights into how and why Chinese NOC's behavior and entangled relations overseas have evolved over the last two decades. In the process the book also underscores the differences in the approaches adopted by the top four Chinese NOCs' forays overseas.