IOR/L/PS/10/555

Correspondence and other papers concerning oil exploration and applications for oil concessions in Mesopotamia [Iraq] and in the frontier region between Mesopotamia and Persia [Iran] during and in the years following the First World War, when Mesopotamia was under British military occupation and administration. The papers cover: an application for an oil concession on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made to the British Government by the Motor Petrol Association Limited, 1918; an application made to the Government by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) for an extension of their Persia oil concession to cover the ‘Persian Gulf littoral’, 1918; the development of an oilfield at Naft Khana [Nafţ Khānah] in Mesopotamia, with company expenditure paid from British military funds; discussion of the position of the Turco-Persian frontier in relation to the Naft Khana oilfields; the transfer of territory from Persia to Mesopotamia, and the formation of a new company by APOC to apply for concession rights in this territory; discussion between the British civil administration in Mesopotamia, HM Petroleum Executive, APOC, the India Office and Foreign Office, on future oil policy in Mesopotamia; the US Ambassador in London’s concern that representatives of the Standard Oil Company of New York were being forbidden to undertake geological surveying work in Mesopotamia, 1919.

The file’s principal correspondents are: the Civil Commissioner in Mesopotamia, Arnold Talbot Wilson; the India Office; the Foreign Office; HM Petroleum Executive.

The volume includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.