FIELD OF DREAMS

THOMAS FINCK IS SAVORING success. When the oilman‐financier arrived in Dallas two years ago to take the helm of Triton Energy Corp., the company was sitting on one of the biggest oil discoveries of the decade—and courting financial ruin. In the vernacular of the oil industry, tiny Triton and its partners had found an “elephant” in the Andean foothills of Colombia in 1991. The giant Cusiana field and a subsequent nearby discovery were worth more than $1 billion to Triton.