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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [182r] (363/484)
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.
developed and any information in the hands cf the
Government likely to help attainment of this object
should be made public, If there was any line of
enquiry not hitherto pursued as to shale in this
country, he felt it ought to be followed up.
It was agreed that the Petroleum Depart
ment should communicate officially with the Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research on this question.
On item 3 of the Agenda Sir John 0adman said
that the view of the Petroleum Department in regard
to the Trinidad Oil-bearing Ordinance of 1917 was that
it should not be renewed, particularly in view of
what was happening in the United States where it was
being contended that as Great Britain excluded American r
oil interests from her Colonies, British interests should ^
not be allowed to participate In the development of
certain oil-lands in tho United States. There was a
danger that a similar policy wouId be adopted elsewhere
e,g. In Mexico, Mr. Sperling pointed out that
recent Mexican legislation was directed as much against
American interests as against British interests; the
proposed restrictive legislation had not yet been put
into force in that country and both the United States
and Great Britain were refusing to recognise it.
Mexico was not in a very strong position as it could
not possibly develop its oil resources without foreign
capital. Legislation had been threatened which would
have tho effect of making all mineral products the
property of the Mexican Government.
Mr. Koliaway pointed out that that was
exactly what was being proposed in the Petroleum
(Production)
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’ [182r] (363/484), 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_100076914802.0x0000af> [accessed 25 July 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