'Confidential D 107 86/5-I Eastern and General Syndicate Ltd. - Saudi Arabia' [‎91r] (186/386)

The capital in 1931 was stated to be held in the following proportions :—
Percentage.
British
52
Italian
24
German
12
Franco-Swiss ...
12
100
In December 1932 a new company was formed, known as “ Mosul Oil-fields
(Limited),” to acquire the shares in the British Oil Development Company and to
carry on its operations. The company had a nominal capital of £1 million in
£1 shares. In March 1933 the board of this company was reconstructed, and
the Foreign Office was informed by the company that the directorate was as
follows :—
Viscount Goschen {chairman).
Other British directors (5) : Sir Edward Mountain (deputy chairman), the
late Admiral Lord Wester Wemyss, Lord Glenconner (director of
Hambro’s Bank), W. R. Brown (director of British Union Oil Company),
and Sir Alwin Dickinson (formerly the representative of the British
Government on the British Phosphate Commission) as managing
director.
Italian directors (3) : Professor Alessandro Martelli, Gr. Uff. Arnaldo
Petretti, and Gr. Uff. Vittorio Amoretti (Azienda Generale Italiana
Petroli).
German directors (2) : Herr Thomas Brown and Herr M. Hirschfeld.
French director (1): M. Paul Girod.
Iraq Government director (1): Jafar Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. -el-Askeri; a total of thirteen.
The company is not known to be at present interested in Saudi Arabia.
(3) The Anglo-Persian Oil Company —See at (1) above as to
A.P.O.C.’s participation in the I.P.C. and the restrictions imposed thereby. The
A.P.O.C. has, however, in addition to its main concession in Persia, which has
been confirmed by a revised agreement with the Persian Government, dated the
29th April, 1933, a separate interest also in Iraq, where, through its subsidiary,
the Khaniqin Oil Company, it has a concession in the ” Transferred Territories ”
under agreements with the Iraq Government on the 30th August, 1925, and the
24th May, 1926. It also has freedom of action in Koweit, where it is competing
for a concession with the Eastern and General Syndicate, representing the Gulf
Oil Corporation.
(4) The Eastern and General Syndicate. —This is a British company
registered in August 1920 with a nominal capital of £125,300. The chairman
and managing director is E. W. Janson, and the other directors are F. W. Gamble,
H. T. Adams and P. C. Tarbutt. It has, at various times, acquired concessions
in Bahrein and Arabia, but has never carried out any really effective work, its
sole object being apparently to obtain concessions and traffic in them to other
parties. The company at one time approached the Anglo-Persian without success,
and in 1927 and 1929 transferred its interests to the Eastern Gulf Oil Corporation
of U.S.A. (see under (5) below). Its local representative is Major F. Holmes.
(5) The Gulf Oil Corporation is a wholly American concern, working in the
Near East through its subsidiary, the Eastern Gulf Oil Company. The Gulf Oil
Corporation is a powerful company engaged in producing, transporting, refining
and marketing oil throughout the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains.
It is also engaged in producing oil in Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, and
markets oil extensively in Europe. The principal interest in it is that of the
Mellon family, who are said to have come in originally as financiers and to have
ended up with an 80 per cent, interest. The Gulf is an independent company, but
it is interested with the Socony—Vacuum Company (a recent merger of the
Standard Oil Company of New York and Vacuum Oil Company), and S.O., New
Jefsey, in the I.P.C. it is also interested with the Eastern and General Syndicate
in a possible concession in Koweit. In 1927 it obtained an option from the
Eastern and General on the Bahrein Concession, which the syndicate had secured
in December 1925. Eventually, however, this concession was taken over by the
Standard Oil of California, presumably because the Gulf, as a member of the
I. P.C., could not hold it. In 1929 it acquired from the Eastern and General
[879 1—1] b 2