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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [30v] (60/484)
The record is made up of 1 item (242 folios). It was created in 1 Nov 1919-20 May 1924. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
COPY.
No. E. 10536/2409/93.
Eokeign Office, S.W. 1.
26th, September, 1921.
Sir,
I am directed by the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to acknowledge
the receipt, of your letter No. 46534/1921 of the 20th instant regarding the
refinery erected by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company on the Diyalah and the
necessity of adjusting the Company’s tenure of the property.
2. In reply I am to draw attention to the correspondence exchanged
with the United States Ambassador on the subject of economic rights in
•miandated territories, and to transmit to you herewith, for facility of
reference, a printed copy of that correspondence.
3. From paragraph 5 of Lord Curzon’s note to Mr. Davis of the 9th
August 1920, Mr. Secretary Churchill will note that the operations con
ducted in Mesopotamia for securing oil supplies and the erection of the
refinery at Baghdad, were defended on the ground that they were under
takings required for purely military purposes and that no private interests
were in any way involved.
4. It is understood from informal enquiries of your Department that
it is no longer possible to continue to justify the requisition of the privately
owned property on which the refinery stands, on' grounds of military
necessity, and with a view to keep the refinery in the hands of the military
authorities.
5. It would therefore seem essential to proceed in the matter, in such
manner as to avoid giving the United States Government the impression
that the statement in paragraph 5 of the above mentiond Foreign Office
note was misleading, and that, with the setting up of an Arab Government,
His Majesty’s Government in advance of the ratification of the Turkish
Peace Treaty and the entry into, force of the mandate, were endeavouring
to induce the Arab Government to expropriate the land, and to hand over
the refinery to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as a concession. For this
reason, Lord Curzon considers it most undesirable that the draft concession
which Sir A. T. Wilson without the knowledge of Hi4 Majesty’s Govern
ment negotiated with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company should now be signed
or indeed treated ijn any way as in force.
6. I am accordingly to suggest for the consideration of Mr. Secretary
Churchill that the best course would be to request the Arab Government to
expropriate the land on grounds of public utility, and to arrange, if neces
sary, that the Arab Government should run or maintain the refinery, through
the intermediary of its present occupiers (i.e. the experts lent to the military
administration by the Anglo-Persian Company) until the legal formalities
i.e. the ratification of the Peace Treaty, entrv into force of the mandate and
perhaps the conclusion of the Treaty with Xing Faisal, are complete, when
arrangements could doubtless be made for the concession to be duly granted
to tie Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
T. Should occasion arise it would be possible to defend this action,
by explaining to the United States Government, that on the completion of
the refinery the military necessity for its erection had ceased, but, since it
was then found that land assigned for the installaion was privately owned,
and that the owner had demanded its restitution, the Mesopotamian
authorities found it necessary, on grounds of public utilfty and in order to
maintain the refinery until the development of the oil resources of the
Gauntry could be undertaken, to keep the installation in their hands bv
expropriating the land.
I am, etc.,
(Sd.) LANCELOT OLIPHANT.
To
The Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office.
About this item
- Content
The item comprises correspondence and other papers concerning oil exploration in territories that were part of the Ottoman Empire prior to the First World War. The item includes: reports on exploratory drilling being undertaken by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) at Naft Khana [Nafţ Khānah], in territory transferred from Persia [Iran] to Mesopotamia [Iraq] in 1914 in response to recommendations made by the Turco-Persian Boundary Commission; the question of whether APOC drilling activity at Naft Khana should be paid for out of military funds, given Britain’s military occupation and administration of Mesopotamia during and after the First World War; oil concessions in Mesopotamia in relation to the San Remo Oil Agreement (1920), signed between the British and French Governments; a 1920 survey report by the APOC geologist, William Robert Smellie, entitled ‘Oil in relation to Fars anticlines’ (ff 132-139), and a response by the Officiating Director of the Geological Survey of India, Edwin Hall Pascoe, that disagrees with Smellie’s findings (ff 100-101); British Government policy on mining and oil prospecting in Palestine; and correspondence exchanged between representatives of the Government of the United States and the Foreign Office, relating to the refusal to permit American companies to conduct oil surveys in Mesopotamia.
The item’s principal correspondence are: the Foreign Office; HM Petroleum Executive, the Civil Commissioner in Baghdad, Arnold Talbot Wilson; and representatives of the Government of the United States.
The item includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.
- Extent and format
- 1 item (242 folios)
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- IOR/L/PS/10/557/2
- Title
- File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’
- Pages
- 1r:6v, 8r:15v, 19r:28r, 30r:47v, 49r:56v, 59r:60v, 62r:63r, 65r:65v, 68r:74v, 77r:105v, 107r:131v, 140r:146v, 149r:163v, 174r:187v, 190r:190v, 193r:198v, 200r:201v, 203r:212v, 214r:229v, 231r:242v
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- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
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- Open Government Licence