مجموعة ٣٠/٨٧(٢) الجزء II "قطر: الامتياز النفطي - عمليات شركة امتيازات النفط المحدودة." [و‎‎١‎٨‎٢] (٦٠٣/٣٦٦)

page 4.
its officers have acquiesced in these shoals being described
as Bahrain property in the negotiations with Petroleum Conces
sions Limited in 1938-39 vide Article I of the various draft
agreements and the maps attached to them. My view is there
fore that the two shoals should be assigned to Bahrain which
has done all it can to establish its sovereignty over the
places in the now outmoded style of empire-building without
any kind of protest from Qatar. If, however, expert legal
opinion is to the contrary, so much the better.
8 . I find myself, however, unable to agree with the
Political Agent in his proposals regarding the delimiting line
for the ownership of these shoals vide paragraph 24 of his
letter and particularly with his argument that the three-
fathom curve should be chosen because it includes the points
where the Bahrain Petroleum Company wants to drill. This is
entirely begging the point. It seems absurd to regard a
shoal which is itself part of a shelf as having its own shelf,
and it is in any case hardly possible in the present instance
to select the three-fathom line as the limit of the shoals*
shelf as according to the charts they are linked up at this
depth with both the Qatar peninsula and the Bahrain Islands.
I consider therefore that if these shoals are to be regarded
as the property of Bahrain they should be delimited by their
low water levels or that at the most they should be regarded
as having a radius of territorial waters up to the three-mile
limit*. In either case points E & F where the Bahrain
Petroleum Company wish to drill will be excluded from Bahrain
limits.
9.
1 am also ....
*It would appear from § 190(a), Oppenheim Volume I, that Dlbal,
none of which is above high water level can have no territorial
waters. Such waters ought perhaps to be assigned to Jaradah
on the assumption that a part of it is above high water level.
^ 311 ^ s l an< ** هذه التواريخ تقريبية Until however this assumption is
verified by a survey no drilling should be allowed below the
low water level.