IOR/R/15/1/697

The volume comprises correspondence between the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Charles Geoffrey Prior), the Political Agent at Kuwait (Arnold C Galloway, Tom Hickinbotham, Cornelius J Pelly, Gordon N Jackson), the India Office (John Percival Gibson, Roland Tennyson Peel), the Shaikh of Kuwait (Shaikh Aḥmad al-Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ) and the Gulf Oil Company (Ralph O Rhoades, William Smellie, A E Angus) regarding negotiation for a sulphur concession in Kuwait. The concession was granted to the newly formed Eastern Gulf Oil Company in June 1942. A copy of the concession agreement in Arabic and English can be found at folios 118-138 and the political agreement at folios 149-150.

Later correspondence discusses the commencement of exploration work in 1944 and the decision taken by the Company in 1945 to discontinue their search as exploration had been unsuccessful.Also discussed within the volume is the value and importance of sulphur both for wartime military requirements and for general trade, along with the need to establish new supplies to meet wartime needs.

A request for geological data about the sulphur found in Kuwait made by the External Affairs Department of the Government of India is also included.The volumes also contains correspondence with Major M J Smith of the Middle East Supply Centre in which wartime supplies such as sulphur and sugar are discussed along with the Centre’s desire to understand how trade operated in the Persian Gulf and how decisions such as the imposition of export licences on Iraq and Persia might affect the region.

A series of file notes which were maintained as a record of the correspondence in the volume can be found at folios 202-218. The last folio of the file notes contains a query dated six months after the correspondence in the volume ends, and discusses the question of payments made to the Shaikh of Kuwait under the sulphur concession agreement.