"ملف 39/8، تطوير النفط في الشرق الأوسط: خط الأنابيب العابر لشبه الجزيرة العربية" [و‎‎٣‎٠] (١٦١/٥٩)

Extract from United States Journal
of Commerce dated 31 October 1944.
ARABIAN OIL LINE TO BE BUILT DESPITE CLASH, EXPERTS SAY+
Admitting that the battle over international control
of oil will come to a head immediately after the national
election here, well-informed oil men still insisted today
that, whether or not an agreement is reached, one thing
sure to survive is the proposal to build a pipe line from
fields in Saudi-Arabia controlled by the Texas Co. and
Standard Oil of California.
This line will be built and it will be built by
private capital put up by the companies, the well-informed
men declared.
All that is dead, they added, is the famous proposal
of Petroleum Administrator Ickes to have the American
government build this line and keep it.
This proposal, they continued, never has been widely
understood. At best, they went on, it never was more
than a bluff to force private interests to agree to the
project, especially foreign interests. But it could not
have been realized for two reasons.
For one thing the line must pass through mandated
territory and only the mandated government can build there.
For another, the Petroleum Administration is slated
to wind up on June 30, 1947, at which time it must have
all its funds in liquid form, a fact that precludes it
from sinking 150 millions in a project it will take
several years to complete.
Only the Texas Co. and Standard of California can
do that and have an interest in doing so, oil men
explained, for these companies own the oil to be piped.
The difficulty they face is the objection of other
American concerns. When the Texas and California companies
drew their plans for the line and raised the money for it,
they aroused opposition here because the pipes would lead
to the Mediterranean, avoiding Suez Canal tolls, a fact
that would enable these companies to undersell those
shipping oil by tanker from America.
The Arabian holdings of the two companies are
among the richest in the world and tapping them has
been restrained by agreements among foreign companies
heavily entrenched in the Near East and Persia. But
their objection to piping Cal-Tex oil to the sea and so
to European markets have been lessened, if not done away
with entirely, by pressure from the British government,
which sees that feeling is rising in America over the
extent to which American resources have been depleted
by the calls of war
(Received under India Office, London, endorsement
No. Ext. 5231/44 dated 20th November 1944.)
By STANTON
World-Telegram