IOR/R/15/2/666

The file comprises correspondence and statistical tables relating to the production of oil and other petroleum products by the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) during and immediately after the Second World War. The principal correspondents in the file are: the Chief Local Representative for BAPCO (usually Ward P Anderson); the Political Agent in Bahrain (Hugh Weightman; Major Reginald George Evelin William Alban; Edward Birkbeck Wakefield; Major Tom Hickinbotham).

The file includes:

• correspondence relating to the British Government’s legal powers to assume control of BAPCO production, as outlined in the Political Agreement between the Government and BAPCO, and the extent to which the British Government could exercise control over production or order the destruction of oil company property (ff 4-17);
• requests made by the Political Agent to BAPCO and to the California-Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC) for oil production figures for the refineries at Bahrain and Dhahran in Saudi Arabia (f 24, ff 28-29, ff 31-33);
• monthly oil production reports (from f 43), submitted by BAPCO to the Political Agency between January 1943 and February 1946, containing monthly output volumes (in barrels and tons) for: crude oil, motor spirits, kerosene, power kerosene, diesel oil, fuel oil and aviation spirits (between July 1945 and January 1946);
• statistics, submitted monthly by BAPCO to the Political Agent from January 1943 (from f 54), on the volumes and value of TEL (tetraethyl lead) shipped to and from and stored at Bahrain. These details were submitted to the Agency, which forwarded them on via cypher telegram to the British Government’s Petroleum Department officials in London and Baghdad, and the BAPCO offices in New York;
• correspondence about an enquiry regarding the ullage of the partially discharged tanker South America (ff 89-96).