IOR/R/15/1/657

The volume contains letters, telegrams and memoranda relating to oil prospecting undertaken in Bahrain by the Bahrain Petroleum Company (hereafter BAPCO), and the development of BAPCO’s infrastructure. The volume is a direct continuation of ‘File 86/2 VIII (C 49) Bahrain Oil’ (IOR/R/15/1/656). The principal correspondents in the volume are the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard Fowle, the Political Agent in Bahrain, Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Gordon Loch, the Chief Local Representative for BAPCO, Ed Skinner, and the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain, Charles Dalrymple-Belgrave.

Subjects covered by the volume include:

• The ongoing construction of oil export facilities off Sitrah Island, including a pump station, submarine pipeline, and anchorage with buoys;
• A request by BAPCO for their vessel El Segundo to use wireless radio communications with BAPCO employees onshore, as well as for long-distance communications with the Company’s head offices in San Francisco. Loch’s consultations with Imperial & International Communications Limited (I&ICL) in Bahrain, and with the Admiralty, result in the former request being agreed, but the latter request being denied, the reason given that I&ICL’s new wireless radio station in Bahrain should be used instead (folios 29-30, 95-105, 176-79, 188-90);
• Questions of the measurement of oil in order to determine the royalties payable, with a description of how oil in storage tanks should be measured (folios 165-68), where responsibility for measurements should lie, how royalty should be paid (folios 72-76), and a statement of oil saved, used and stored for the period up until 31 December 1933 (folios 118-19);
• Discussion of who should hold the permanent post of Chief Local Representative for BAPCO, with Belgrave’s name mooted (folio 68), and British officials’ final decision to appoint Ed Skinner, in spite of the fact that the original concession stipulated that a British subject should at all times occupy the position (folio 109), amid continued resistance from the Bahrain ruling family to an American representative (folios 200-02);
• BAPCO’s refusal to commit to oil refining in Bahrain “in the face of continually uncertain and changeable world-wide market conditions” (folios 242-45), and doubts over the extent of Bahrain’s oil field (folio 115);
• Government of Bahrain approval for the construction of facilities at Sitrah Island, and for the construction of a permanent BAPCO camp on the mainland, in spite of the fact of a mining lease having not yet commenced (folios 60-61, 64-65);
• A report on BAPCO activity covering the period until 31 December 1933, including details on the status of wells, list of employees by classification and nationality, and a description of camp buildings (folios 128-33);
• Settlement in an ongoing dispute between the Government of Bahrain and BAPCO over the categories of goods imported by BAPCO on which duty should be paid, with a list of dutiable and non-dutiable goods (folios 183-84);
• Details of oil equipment imported on the German Hansa line vessel SS Wachtfels (folios 79-80, 113-14);
• The Ruler of Bahrain, Shaikh Ḥamad bin ‘Īsá Āl Khalīfah’s insistence that some positions of responsibility be given to native Bahrainis, and complaints over the employment of some foreigners who are ‘notoriously bad characters’ (folios 234-35).