مجموعة ٦ / ٦٧ (٦) "حدود جنوب شرق الجزيرة العربية وقطر: امتيازات النفط في الساحل المتصالح" [و‎‎١‎٢‎٥] (٤٠٢/٢٥٦)

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E ^69/209/25)
/9B/2.
ST.
'is*-
British Len-ation,
JEDDA.
18th January, 19h5
Dear Baxter,
29th December^last t re Ardin^thrA 1 ^ 11 ^ (E 6 5^5/l 28/25) of
Eastern frontier of Saudi delimitation of the South
I first raised this ouestinnt^ ’ y ° U ' V 1 J: :L no dou ' bt remember that
of 6 th September par « g f,fP^ 12 of my despatch No. 88
to settle^ thTsouestion wi J hSt We should ag ' ain attempt
which I had with Mr S?ckinw£ n a r? e out of a conversation
whom I met once fofced to land there by stres^of^weathe?. Bahreln ‘
Question i appeared to both of us that the frontier
had extended -ito ” 1C lr ‘ 0I ' e difficult to settle when the company
n? th^-o? 3 -to operation and had "tasted" oil in the region
or the Qatar .peninsula* - s
. r>^ 9 ~ ra ^*^ r , question with the Secretary of State
^° air0 the late Lord Moyne’s insistence, who also thought
tnat a settlement in the -future might prove more difficult than
at present. He was activated more hy political reasons, e. g.
8 w ^ seri ^ n E - of the situation in the Middle East over Palestine
or the Levant States though he was alive to the possibility of
the Americans making every effort to induce Ibn Saud to stand
°vQ ^ r)S ^ i an y cession of so-called tribal territory which,
should Ibn Saud gain his l -point, would form part of the United
States concession.
. . ^ -f- given the matter considerable thought before
raising it in the despatch above referred to, and it appears to
me that we are, at the present time, in a more favourable position
from which to effect a settlement than we have been in the
past. ? ' „ . j
Firstly, Miere is now no doubt in the mind of Ibn Saud
that -he possesses in : Saudi Arabia oil resources which will bring J
him and his successors a considerable revenue for hundreds of
years to come. He has claimed to me that the richest oil bearing
areas in his domains are not included in the United States
company’s concession, but that he does not intend to grant any
further concessions for oil at present. When the previous-
negotiations were carried out there was no certainty that oil
existed in its present known large quantities and consequently
Tbn Saud, knowing of the Petroleum Concessions Ltd. ’s concession
pn the Qatar peninsular may have attached considerable
importance to the potential oil-bearing capacity of the Jebel
Nakhsh area. I feel that with the vast reserves of oil now known
to be in his country the small area embracing Jebel Nakhsh has
lost much of its value for him and he may now be more amenable
io a settlement than formerly when he no doubt considered that the
area in question represented- wealth*
Secondly, Ibn Saud has been impressing on his surrounding
Arab neighbours the necessity of falling into line with British
aims and policy, vide his advice to the Imam Yahya of the Yemen
and more recently to Shukri Kuwaitli, and I think that it could
C. W. Baxter, Esq., C. M. G. , M. C. ,
FOREIGN OFFICE,
LONDON,
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