IOR/L/PS/10/556

Correspondence and other papers relating to oil exploration and the acquisition of oil concessions in Mesopotamia [Iraq] (and to a lesser degree, Persia [Iran]) by oil companies. The companies involved are: the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC); the Shell Transport Company (STC, also referred to as the Anglo-Saxon Oil Company), led by chief negotiator John Steven Cowans; the Standard Oil Company of New York (SOC). The correspondence covers: Cowans’s trip to Mesopotamia on behalf of STC; reports of SOC geologists to Mesopotamia; the British Government’s decision that all oil exploration and efforts at obtaining concessions in Mesopotamia should be stopped while the country remains under military administration; the retention of STC experts for oil exploration for military purposes; APOC exploration in the Pasht-i-Kuh region of Persia, and the company’s negotiations with the local Vali (or Wali), rather than the Persian Government; the refusal by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to authorise visas to British SOC representatives wishing to travel to Mesopotamia; suspicions amongst British Government officials that SOC were supporting and financing anti-British sentiment in Mesopotamia; the withdrawal of oil representatives and geologists in Mesopotamia from August 1920, in response to the social unrest and anti-British sentiment spreading across the country (the 1920 Iraqi revolt).

The volume’s principal correspondents are: the Civil Commissioner in Baghdad, Arnold Talbot Wilson; Foreign Office officials; India Office officials.

The file 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.