IOR/R/15/1/650

The volume contains letters, telegrams and memoranda relating to negotiations over the transfer of the Bahrain oil concession, conducted between the British Government, Eastern & General Syndicate Limited (hereafter E&GS), and the Eastern Gulf Oil Company of the United States (EGOC). The volume is a direct continuation, with some overlap of correspondence, with ‘File 86/2 I (C 30) Bahrain Oil Concession (Eastern & General Syndicate)’ (IOR/R/15/1/649). The principal correspondents in the volume are the Political Agent in Bahrain, Captain Charles Prior, Major Frank Holmes, Director of E&GS, and various representatives of the Colonial Office of the British Government in London.

Key subjects covered by the volume include:

• Negotiations between the British Government and E&GS (on behalf of EGOC) for the transfer of the Bahrain oil concession from E&GS to EGOC, with particular emphasis on four conditions stipulated by the British Government to ensure sufficient British control of a concession funded by foreign finance;
• An agreement of the concession transfer, and negotiations between the British Government and the solicitors appointed by EGOC (Freshfields, Leese and Munns of London) for the transfer;
• Questions over legal jurisdiction and property law in Bahrain; negotiations with regard to the liability of the Ruler of Bahrain (Shaikh Ḥamad bin ‘Īsá Āl Khalīfah) in the event of theft of oil company property by oil company employees;
• Registration of the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) in Canada;
• Holmes’s trip to Bushire and Bahrain, and his appointment as chief representative of BAPCO in Bahrain;
• E&GS/BAPCO application to extend the oil concession area across those parts of Bahrain not covered by the existing concession.

The volume contains numerous copies of the indentures and concessions agreements, in copy and original (folios 110-14, 206-10, 211-29).