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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [135r] (269/484)
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.
ft
a
( 2 ) From the fossil content of the Fare it seems improbable
that either animals or vegetable life was present in
sufficient abundance to form any considerable quantity
of indigenous oil.
(3) Fars strata include numerous beds excellent for
sealing oil but relatively few beds capable of storing
and yielding oil.Thus,the wonderful yield of Maidan-i-
Naftun becomes one of the strongest arguments against
the theory that Fars contain oil.
-P- x —Q^^ Qr source of the oil it is necessary to seek
beneath the Fars system and next in order comes the Focene
bystem giving about 2,000 feet of strata composed of compact
massive limestone,platey limestones and mudstones.The limestone
is often found replaced by gypsum but otherwise this system
is remarkably uniform throughout the area and contains no bed
hopeful either for producing or storing oil.
Having rulled out both the Fars and the Focene systems
and so disposed of the Kainozoic ©roup we must turn to the
Mesozoic Group which is much more hopeful through less fre
quently exposed and consequently less well known. In Kalhur
only the upper beds of the Cretaceous system are exposed.These
are composed of limes mudstones and massive limestones,they
are subject to great lateral variation but they show the
remains of a very abundant fauna and in places they are thorough
ly permeated with oil and manjak,e.g at Imam Hasan,a core of
cretaceous rocks occupies the centre of the valley formed in
the anticline, In this occur numerous small seepages of oil,
veins of manjak,sulphur springs and salt springs. This oil
must come from Mesozoic rocks as all younger rocks have been
denuded away.
Again,consider the Dehluran Dalpari Area,(vide
Geological sketch Map Geological Survey H.T.M.16 Fig.l) this
shows seepages and traces of oil outcropping not along the
strike of any oil bearing stratum but directly across the
strike of all rocks present,.i.e from Fars on the plain,through
Socene on the Flanks of the hills to Cretaceous on the too of
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’ [135r] (269/484), 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_100076914802.0x000051> [accessed 19 August 2026]
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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
- 132r:139v
- Author
- Smellie, William Robert
- Copyright
- ©BP is believed to be the rightsholder
- Usage terms
- Creative Commons Non-Commercial Licence