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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [‎188r] (375/484)

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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. .

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10 872 500 2/20 [195]
British
DRAFT TELEGRAM.
SECRETARY OE STATE
TO
Despatched
CIVIL COMMISSIONER IN MESOP(
TAMIA.
(ZAFANDO, BAGDAD.)
V^ry secret .
Followiiig is extract of French
agreement ratified at San Remo.
Decision has not yet been taken
as to whether Mesopotamian oilfields
are to be operated by Government
or by Company.
■ ’The British Government undertake to
| grant to the French Government or
iits nominee 25 per cent of the ne 1
I output of crude oil at current market
[ ra be s whi ch I li s Maj e sty f s Government

| may secure from the Mesopotamian,
oilfields, in the event of theirbeing
developed by Government action.; or
in the event of a private petroleum
company being used to develop the
Mesopotamian oilfields, the British
Government will place at the disposal
of the French Government a share of
25 per cent in such company, r he
price to be paid for such participation
to be no more than that paid by
any of the other participants to the t
said petroleum company. It is also
understood that the said petroleum
company shall be under permanent

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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
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File 2249/1915 Pt 4 ‘Oil: Mesopotamia & Persia. (General File) 1920–24’ [‎188r] (375/484), 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_100076914802.0x0000bb> [accessed 13 May 2024]

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