Unlike its European ancestors, the United States was never involved in the direct colonization of Northwest African territory. Nonetheless, the United States has played an important role in the fate of the Maghrib and Sahara-Sahel. Most accounts of US energy interests in the region narrate a story dominated by Libya — a story of cooperation, conflict, and, now, revolution and intervention. The US-Libyan enmity has been well documented and subject to much public and political debate. Less well know is the history of US energy interests in the Algerian Sahara. Today Algeria is among the top ten energy suppliers to the United States yet the post-colonial trajectory of Algiers-Washington relations has been one marked by seemingly profound ideological difference. When one compares this history to that of Algeria’s western neighbor, Morocco, and its eastern neighbor, Tunisia, countries with very little hydrocarbon reserves of their own, the contrast is quite striking. The purpose here is, first, to bring back into the study of US relations in the Maghrib the issue of hydrocarbon locations and allocations, paying close attention to the different tactics deployed in Washington’s pursuit energy security, regional stability, and the promotion of humanitarian norms. At the centre of the analysis here will be the crises of civil violence in Algeria (1997-98) and Libya (2011), which prompted two very different reactions. The second purpose is to offer an account of the powers of hydrocarbons and US hegemony in the Maghrib without necessarily imbuing either with a logic and coherence they do not have.