'File 5/1 II Kuwait Oil Company' [‎45r] (94/552)

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No. /V
Xo H.E.
_ dated the January 1923 T
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Shaikh Ahmad al-Jabir as-Subah,
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C.I.E.,
A. C,
Ruler of Kuwait.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the *7Lh Jamadl I 1341 relative to the proposed agreements for the
exploration for and exploitation of oil in Y.E.’s territory.
T tui/X-
i hope that the following explanations remove the difficulties
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which you saw in my previous letter.
ihe difference between the Exploration Licence and the Prospect
ing Licence is that under the former a few geologists will come and
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travel about the country studying the nature and formation of the
ground and will prepare reports and maps of any tracts in which they
think oil is likely to be found. Under the Prospecting Licence on
the other hand. Engineers and come and test, by actuall
drilling wells, etc., whether there actually is oil in such places
as the geologists reported it as likely to be found, and whether it
is in sufficient quantities to be worth the expense of.working 0
I. THE EXPLORATION LICENCE.
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(a) Area. The area which the Company wishes to explore is only
that included within the red line.
(b) &(c) The period and licence fee are as you say 8 years, ex
tensible to four if necessary, & Hs.1,000/-
II. PROSPECTING LICENCE.
n. (a) Area. The Company cannot say the extent of the area In whlc/cr-
they will want to prospect until their geologists have ex
plored the country and submitted their reports, but they
think the area will not be more than 400,000 acres alto
gether, or that they will want to prospect in more than
five different parts of Y.E.’s territory. As an example,
they might want to prospect in a tract of 150,000 acres
round Burqan, In one of 100,000 acres round Ghadhai, in one
of 80,000 acres In Yah, in one of 50,000 acres to the west
of Jahrah, and in one of 20,000 acres in Kabd. Each plot
might be of any shape, square, oblong, triangular, round,or
entirely Irregular. Of course there is no reason to suppose
that they will want to prospect in five different blocks,as
It is quite likely that the geologists Ik may think it Is
unnecessary to do so, and consequently the 400,000 acres ,
or such less area as they wish to prospect in, may be in
only two parts of your territory, or even all together in
one place. As the acre is a British measure which is not
used in Kuwait, and as there Is no square measure here, I
wished to give Y.E. an idea of the extent of 400,000 acres
and said that if the 400,000 acres were all together and In
the shape of an exact square, each of its four sides would
be 25 miles long, or approximately 83,368 dhira's, which
would make a total of 333,472 dhira's according to your
method of measurement®
(b) 6c (c) Period 2 years and licence fee Rs.10,000/r as you
say®
HI. EXPLOITATION LEASE.
(a) Area not more than 100,000 acres divided into not more than
three blocks. The explanation of this Is similar to that of
the 400,000 acres above. To give you an idea of the area,
if the 100,000 acres be all in one plot and exactly square,
each side will be 12& miles or about 41,684 dhiras, making ,