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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [49r] (97/484)
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.
SSCOHD REVISE.
‘ ■ /.
- ‘ f*. \
t -a l
* U g
'A- £*» J I
For Sign ““Off ice,
January 1921
Your Exoellenoy,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt
of your note of December 6th, enclosing a communica
tion^ dated the 20th November from the S. of S*
of the United States ; relative to the application
in territories placed under mandate of the
principles of equality of treatment and opportunity,
and more especially to the petroleum resources
found in the Near East. His Majesty’s Government
are pleased to observe that the United States
Government appreciates the general policy adopted
by His Majesty’s Government in territories under
military occupation.
2. fMr. Colby’s) note repeats the suggestion,
originally made in your note of May 12th, that
the Allied and Associated Powers had entered
into an agreement at Paris that all the enemy
territory, transferred as a result of the war
with the Central Powers, should be held and
administered in such a way as to assure equal
treatment to the commerce and to the citizens
of all nations, I did not feel it necessary
to deal with this suggestion in my note of
August 9th, because, as stated in that note, it
has always been the intention of His Majesty’s
Government that the mandates for Mesopotamia and
Palestine should secure equality of treatment and
opportunity/
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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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [49r] (97/484), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/557/2, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100076914801.0x00006d> [accessed 16 August 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- 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
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence