IOR/R/15/1/687

The file contains correspondence between the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (William Rupert Hay); the Political Agent at Kuwait (Gordon Noel Jackson, Maurice O’Connor Tandy); the India Office (later the Commonwealth Relations Office, Eion Pelly Donaldson, Adrian Harbottle Reed, Ralph Ingham Hallows); the Foreign Office (Lancelot Frank Lee Pyman); the Ministry of Fuel and Power (William Dunmore Monsell-Davies); His Majesty’s Minister at Jedda (Alan Charles Trott); the Shaikh of Kuwait (Shaikh Aḥmad al-Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ) and various oil companies in relation to the auction process instituted by the Shaikh of Kuwait for his share in the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Neutral Zone oil concession.

The companies which expressed an interest in bidding for the Kuwait neutral zone concession included Petroleum Concessions Limited, the Burmah Oil Company, the Eastern Gulf Company, the Amerada Petroleum Company, the American Independent Petroleum Corporation, the Superior Oil Company of California and the Canadian Eagle Oil Company. However owing to the Shaikh's requirement that financial backing and resources to undertake exploitation of an oil concession are proven by each potential bidder only four companies were permitted to continue and submit final bids on 1 June 1948 – Petroleum Concessions Limited, the Burmah Oil Company, the Eastern Gulf Company and the American Independent Petroleum Corporation.

Other matters discussed in the file include:

• the question of the political agreement between His Majesty’s Government and successful Oil Company and discussing whether such an agreement could be made with an American Company and also what changes and special requirements would have to be made owing to the concession only being for the Shaikh of Kuwait’s share of the neutral zone.
• a visit paid by the Shaikh of Kuwait to Ibn Saud (‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd)and the question of whether or not the neutral zone was discussed by them.
• debate around the possibility of a geographic division of the neutral zone in order to make administration of the zone easier, and the conclusion that negotiations for such a division could take years and would not perhaps be in the best interests of the Oil Companies exploiting an oil concession there.
• a hydrographic survey of the coast-line of the neutral zone to locate a suitable landing site for heavy equipment.
• a new air service instituted by Iraq Airways in 1947 that would fly from Basra to Kuwait and Bahrain.

A series of file notes which were maintained as a record of the correspondence in the volume can be found at folios 272-299.