مجموعة ٦/ ٤٨ "النفط: امتيازات في المملكة العربية السعودية. (الأحساء)" [و‎‎١‎٩‎٤] (١١٥٣/٣٨٧)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
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EASTERN (Arabia).
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March 21, 1936r-
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 3.
[E 1537/1283/25]
Sir A. Ryan to Mr. Eden.—(Received March 21.)
(No. 61. Confidential.)
Sir, Jedda, February 28, 1936.
WITH reference to Mr. Calvert’s despatch N o. 276 of the 8th October last,
I have the honour to state that I had an interesting conversation on the
27th February with Mr. W. J. Lenahan, the local representative of the California
Arabian Standard Oil Company, about the position in regard to the company’s
concession in Hasa. Mr. Lenahan had offered spontaneously to come and tell me
all he could. Although he made no secret of what he had to say, I would ask you
to regard this record as confidential and not for the information of rival
industrial interests.
2 Mr. Lenahan referred to the recent creation of a new company,
technically British, under the name of the “ California Standard Oil Company
(Limited).” Its head office is in San Francisco, and the directors are all United
States citizens, except one Frenchman and a London solicitor, Mr. H. R. J
Ballantyne, of whom the other interested parties think very highly. The moving r
spirit in London is Mr. L. N. Hamilton, with whom I am on very friendly terms.
3. Mr. Lenahan explained that the new company would deal with the
marketing of Bahrein oil, and would also act as a “ service unit ” for the Bahrein
Oil Company, i.e., attend to their supplies and the recruitment of their rapidly
increasing imported personnel. It would in due course perform the same
functions for the California Arabian Standard Oil Company.
4. Mr. Lenahan spoke of the relations of his company with the Saudi
Government. They had found Sheikh Muhammad Tawil, the Director of Finance,
&c., in Hasa, most obstructive. They now have nothing more to do with him,
except as regards certain customs matters, and they are greatly pleased with the
special official, Seyyid Hashim, who was sent to Hasa to look after their business
last July (see paragraph 223 of Jedda report for July). This gentleman is now
in the Hejaz, but his employment in Hasa is of a permanent nature and he will
soon be going back there.
5 Mr. Lenahan gave me an account of the position at Jebel Dhahran, the
only place in which wells have been sunk. I was not able to take in all the
technical details, but I reproduce what I understood.
6. The Jebel Dhahran is not a single eminence, but an “ anticline ”
measuring very roughly 10 miles by 4. This is similar in essentials to the
structure at Bahrein, and the nature of the operations in the Jebel has been
based on this analogy. Well No. 1 was sunk at the apex of the anticline. Oil at
the rate of 100 barrels a day was struck at a depth of 1,979 feet. Lower down.
I understand, difficulty was encountered owing to the great volume of gas. In
this connexion Mr. Lenahan mentioned, I think, a figure of 80 million cubic feet
of gas at a depth of 2,400 feet, but I am not clear as to the significance of this
figure. Practicable oil may be struck at greater depths. Drilling was recently
resumed, and some days ago the depth was 2.365 feet, “ deep-drilling through a
cement plug.” Preparations were being made “ to run a 6f-inch casing.”
7. In view of their experience with Well No. 1, the company decided to
start Well No. 2 in the same anticline, hoping that the oil, the existence of which
has been proved by the partial success of No. 1, might there be more workable.
This new well is 1,800 metres to the south and 900 metres to the west of No. 1.
It had reached a depth of 430 feet some days ago, but, when Mr. Lenahan spoke
to me on the 27th, he had heard unofficially that the latest depth was over
500 feet.
8. Mr. Lenahan spoke with definite, though guarded, optimism of the
prospects in the Jebel Dhahran. He told me that the company’s geologists were
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