IOR/R/15/2/755

The file comprises copies of correspondence relating to customs and transit duties payable on equipment and stores owned by Petroleum Development (Qatar) Limited (PDQ) that are passing from Qatar through Bahrain, as a consequence of the shutdown of the Company’s operations in Qatar in 1942. The file’s principal correspondents are: the Political Agent in Bahrain (Edward Birkbeck Wakefield); the Manager of PDQ (Ernest Vincent Packer); and the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain (Charles Dalrymple Belgrave).

The file includes:

• correspondence between the Political Agent, PDQ Manager, and Adviser to Government, including: Bahrain Government agreement that exemption of duty and transit fees should be made for equipment sold to British military forces; PDQ objection to having to pay a two per cent transit duty on stores returning to Bahrain; a list of materials being shipped by PDQ from Qatar via Bahrain (f 29); the Bahrain Government’s eventual waiving of all transit duties on PDQ stores;
• correspondence relating to a similar enquiry concerning customs and transit duties made by the California-Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), and the Bahrain Government’s concession that duty be waived on equipment being brought through Bahrain for purchase on behalf of the United States Armed Forces.