Finding Aid: Sources on Oil, Part 1 – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iran

Overview

The QDL contains a wealth of material covering the early years of the oil industry in the Gulf and surrounding region. This is the first article in a series of two.

Oil in the India Office Records

Several hundred 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. files and volumes from the early to mid-twentieth century relate to oil in the Gulf and beyond. Many more discuss the wider implications of oil discovery and extraction in the region, mostly from a British imperialist perspective. This article highlights some of the most notable oil-related records pertaining to each country, beginning with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iran.

Map of oilfields and concession areas in the Gulf and Middle East, 1945. IOR/L/PS/12/3959, f. 28r

Bahrain

The earliest QDL material on oil in Bahrain is dated 1912-14 and contains correspondence between British officials on the possibility of finding oil deposits there. Shaikh Hamad bin ‘Isa Al Khalifah and the Eastern and General Syndicate Limited signed an oil concession in 1925, and extensions, amendments, and renewals were made for several years afterwards. The discovery of oil came in 1932, and crude oil was exported for the first time in 1934 by the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO), a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of California. The Second World War halted the development of oil exploitation, but by the late 1940s BAPCO was shipping several million tons of oil per year.

The bulk of the QDL’s oil-related material concerns Bahrain, mainly owing to the large number of administrative records produced by the British Political Agency there. Forty-six consecutive Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. files cover Bahrain’s petroleum industry in the period 1934-50 (IOR/R/15/2/1695-1740). There is also a sequence of nineteen related files on the concession and the developing oil industry from 1932 to 1945 (IOR/R/15/2/388-406). A further thirty-eight files largely concern matters relating to BAPCO during the years 1931-50, including oil royalties, oil shipments, and discontent and strikes among employees, to mention just a few (IOR/R/15/2/423-460).

Multiple files and volumes from elsewhere in the IOR collection refer to oil in Bahrain, including a run of three separate volumes on oil prospecting in the country and the development of BAPCO’s infrastructure between 1933 and 1946. Another file contains BAPCO’s annual reports for 1934-46.

Sketch map showing the approximate locations of BAPCO’s sites, 1939. IOR/L/PS/12/3930, f. 134r

Kuwait

Kuwait was also home to a Political Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. , which likewise produced numerous records. An Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. file dated 1912-17 documents the earliest attempts to prospect for oil deposits in Kuwait. Elsewhere in the IOR collection, a volume of correspondence dated 1925-31 contains draft agreements for an oil concession in Kuwait. A concession was eventually signed between Shaikh Ahmad al-Jabir Al Sabah and the recently formed Kuwait Oil Company in 1934, following an agreement between the latter and the British Government earlier that year. Significant oil deposits were discovered in 1938, but the first exports did not begin until 1946, mainly because of the Second World War.

There are thirty-seven Kuwait Political Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. files relating to oil and other natural resources in the period 1912-49 (IOR/R/15/5/236-272), of which many concern the Kuwait Oil Company (IOR/R/15/5/245-251). Several others cover the neutral zone shared between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the question of a potential oil concession in that area (IOR/R/15/5/252-257), as do three other IOR volumes. Also included are three volumes relating to the Kuwait Oil Company’s operations in 1934-48.

Qatar

Numerous records on the QDL document the history of oil in Qatar. The search for oil began relatively late in 1932, although ‘the Father of Oil’ Major Frank Holmes of the Eastern and General Syndicate first enquired about exploratory leases ten years earlier. Shaikh ‘Abdullah bin Jasim Al Thani granted a lease to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) in 1926, but records suggest the latter did not follow up on this.

The discovery of oil in Bahrain in 1932 prompted renewed interest in Qatar’s potential deposits, not least from Holmes. In the same year, Shaikh ‘Abdullah made another agreement with APOC, entitling the Company to two years of exclusive geological exploration and the sole right to apply for a concession. However, negotiations for the concession became complicated and protracted. The British Government was keen for the concession to go to a British company and offered Qatar military protection (backed up by an aerial reconnaissance of the country) in exchange for the concession being granted to British-owned APOC. A concession between Shaikh ‘Abdullah and APOC was eventually signed on 17 May 1935, and a political agreement between the Company and the British Government followed three weeks later. The years leading up to the signing of the concession and the subsequent discovery of oil in 1939 are documented in nine Bahrain Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. files (IOR/R/15/2/410-418).

Blueprint sketch map of Qatar, depicting the oil wells area, 1939. IOR/L/PS/12/3936, f. 13r

The Second World War forced the suspension of operations, and it would be another ten years before oil exports began. Two files from the late 1940s record discussions around seabed oil drilling. Oil was eventually discovered offshore in 1960.

Iran

The QDL also features oil-related material covering the other side of the Gulf in Persia [Iran], where the D’Arcy oil concession was signed in 1901, and oil was discovered in 1908. The following year, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was formed, changing its name to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1935, and again in 1954 to the British Petroleum Company (BP). One volume from that period records the discovery of oil and other early developments. The D’Arcy oil concession was not a good deal for Persia, and the increasingly strained relations between APOC and the Persian Government are covered in two volumes dated 1919-31. Persia cancelled the concession in late 1932 and a diplomatic dispute with Britain ensued. A new concession was agreed the following year, which required APOC to ensure better pay and conditions for its workers. Things did not improve, however, as documented in three individual volumes from the late 1940s, all of which relate to strikes and social unrest amongst the Company’s employees in the country.