IOR/R/15/2/2002

This file contains correspondence, reports and a map regarding exploration for oil and the granting of oil concessions (and related British Government policy) in the states of the Trucial Coast.

Much of the correspondence is between British officials in the India Office, the Foreign Office, the Political Agency in Bahrain, the Political Residency in Bushire and the Petroleum Department in London. Also contained in the file is correspondence between British officials and oil company executives and local rulers including Shaikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi and Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah. Some of this correspondence is in Arabic.

The file contains the following items of note:

• summary of the oil concessions situation in 'Qatar, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras al-Khaimah, Umm al-Qaiwain and Kalba, Ajman and Abu Dhabi as of 15th Nov 1937' (folio 6);
• copy of a 1937 agreement between the Government of Britain and Petroleum Concessions Limited concerning Sharjah (folios 29-30);
• description of routes between the Trucial Coast states by car (folios 90-92 );
• report from 1938 entitled 'Policy in the Event of Obduracy on the Part of Shaikhs or of Competition by other Companies' (folios 219-221);
• report from 1938 entitled 'Possible Modifications of the Political Agreement or Exclusion of the Shaikhs' Co-operation Thereafter' (folios 222-224);
• 1938 Petroleum Department briefing prepared for the Foreign Office, 'Note on Petroleum Developments in the Arabian Peninsula' (folios 240-242);
• a map of the routes along the Trucial Coast that were followed by geologists 'Williamson & Glynn Jones' in 1937 (folio 277).