IOR/R/15/1/696

The volume comprises correspondence in English and Arabic between the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Trenchard Craven Fowle), the Political Agent at Muscat (Ralph Ponsonby Watts), the India Office (John Percival Gibson, John Charles Walton), the Secretary to the Government of India, External Affairs Department (Olaf Kirkpatrick Careo, William Rupert Hay), the Agent to the Governor General for Baluchistan (Alfred Alan Lethbridge Parsons), the Sultan of Muscat (Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Taymūr Āl Bū Sa‘īd), the Burmah Oil Company (William Ernest V Abraham, W A Gray, John H L Brownrigg) and Indian Oil Concessions Limited (Hamilton R Ballantyne, Lloyd Nelson Hamilton, Joseph Paul McCulloch) regarding a possible concession for the Jabal-i-Mehdi [Koh Mehdi] area of Gwadur [Gwadar] belonging to the Sultan of Muscat.

The correspondence covers initial enquiries by both companies to His Majesty’s Government expressing interest in a concession through to the commencement of negotiations and the submission of draft concession agreements for the Sultan’s consideration.

Also discussed in the volume is the boundary between Gwadur and Kalat [Kalāt] which would need to be demarcated before approval could be given for an oil concession at Gwadur. The correspondence discusses relations between the Khan of Kalat (Aḥmad Yār K̲h̲ān) and the Sultan of Muscat, including recent disagreements between both parties over customs and trade, and suggesting possible processes that could be followed in order to demarcate the boundary.A series of file notes which were maintained as a record of the correspondence in the volume can be found at folios 206-216.