MIDDLE EAST OIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1941, Page 6

MIDDLE EAST OIL

OUTPUT AND LOCATION OF FIELDS NOTES ON PAST HISTORY. AMERICAN AND BRITISH INTERESTS. History has a way of repeating itself with, however, certain significant differences. Not a few of the military operations undertaken during the last t war—the German move towards Rumania and Galicia, the Turkish move towards Baku, and the British in Mesopotamia—had oilfields as their objective. Then Russia was with us, and Turkey against us, and the area of hostilities embraced the tableland of Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and the entire Arabian Peninsula as well, says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.” A division of Indian troops defeated the Turks at Sahil and occupied Basra in November, 1914, thus effectually protecting the oil refinery of the An-glo-Persian Oil Company. The Persian soil was also cleared of a Turkish force threatening Ahwaz and local 1 tribes menacing the 120-mile-long pipeline were brought under control. The oil output of the company was then severely limited by the restricted capacity of the pipeline, refinery and tanker fleet. Even so it rose from 2,910,000 barrels in 1914 to 8,623,000 barrels in 1918. The march of mechanisation in the inter-war years makes an uninterrupted and ample flow of oil an indispensable condition for success in a “war of internal-cbmbustion engines.” Also, the mineral oil industry of the Middle East has grown in the same period: OUTPUT IN BARRELS.

(Seven barrels equal one ton). The Anglo-Persian (now Anglo-Iran-ian) Oil Company was registered in London in 1909 to work a concession oroginally obtained in 1901 by a Devonshire man, William Knox d’Arcy, for the exclusive exploitation of petroleum throughout Persia. The company in its prospectus remarked: It is common knowledge that the British Navy has hitherto been hampered in its desire to substitute oil for coal by the difficulty of ensuring regular supplies when they are most wanted —in time of war—and that it has long been desirous of seeing other sources of supply opened up. Hitherto Burma (where the Admiralty had contracts with the Burma Oil Company) has been practically the only source of supsupplies of oil in large quantities in the British Dominions. The outlet of this company’s pipelines, though not in the British Dominions, is at the head of the Persian Gulf, and so under British control. Today the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company occupies a commanding position in Southern and South-eastern Iran and has the powerful backing of the Burma Oil Company and the British Government. Of its ordinary share capital of £13,425.000 the British Governments holds £7,500,000. Many drilling failures preceded the first successful oil strike at Masjra-i-Sulaiman in 1908. The pipeline from this field is 120 miles long and serves the refinery and port at Abadan, at the head of the Presian Gulf. In the northwest another pipeline connects the fields of Naft-i-Shah to the refinery at

Kermanshah, catering for local market needs. In the last twelve years or so several new oilfields have been located at Hoft Kel, Gach Saran, White Oil Springs, and Agha Jari. These are required to maintain production and to offset the gradual decline of the older fields. The operation of the Iranian fields is idea]. All gas is conserved and employed to maintain the pressure in the oil formations and control the oil-gas ratio.

IRAQ’S PRODUCTION. Petroleum was first struck in Iraq in 1927. And 95 per cent of the shares of the Iraq Petroleum-Company, Ltd.,; are held in equal proportions by the Anglo-Iranian (partly British Government), Royal Dutch-Shell, Cio Francaise des Petroles (partly French Government), and by American oil interests (Standard Oil, of New Jersey, and Socony Vacuum). The construction of the pipeline system from Iraq to the Mediterranean, completed in 1934,

marks one of the enduring engineering achievements of recent years. The line from the Kirkuk field bifurcates at Haditha, one branch Crossing Syria to Tripoli and the other traversing the Syrian Desert through Transjordan to the Palestinian port of Haifa. With both pipeline outlets in full operation oil production in Iraq jumped from 7,000,000 barrels in 1934 to 25.000,000 the next year. With the collapse of France the Tripoli outlet has been closed, while at Haifa there is a modern refinery capable of treating 30,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Proven reserves of oil exceed 1,500,000,000 barrels. The Five-Year-Plan of public works inaugurated by Iraq in 1938 and involving an outlay of some £8.250,000 is being largely financed from the royalty payments of the “1.P.C.” Three years ago the Iraqui Government awarded a concession to the Basra Petroleum Company (a subsidiary of the “1.P.C.”) over a large area adjoining the independent territory of Kuwait, where oil has recently been found.

The Bahrein Petroleum Company, though registered in Canada, is owned jointly by two American concerns—the Standard of California and the Texas Corporation. It operates a modern refinery at Manama capable of handling about ten million barrels of crude oil •annually. The same American inter-

ests arc operating through their subsidiary, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, the Damman field connected with the oil port of Ras Tanura, on the Persian Gulf, by a pipeline completed by the operating company in 1939. It is these two fields which the Italian planes attacked last year when the' whole Moslem world was observing the holy Ramadan fast.

1938 1939 Iran (Persia) 77,230,000 77,000.000 Iraq 32.400.000 29,500.000 Bahrein 8.298,000 7.500,000 Saudi Arabia 495.000 4.300.000