IOR/L/PS/10/994/1

IOR/L/PS/10/994/1 consists of memoranda, letters, and correspondence concerning the development of an oil concession for Qatar (also referred to as El Katr). Included are the following:

• Correspondence between British Government officials discussing the implications of different forms of wording to use in responding to a request from the Eastern and General Syndicate Limited to contact the Shaikh of Qatar [Shaikh Abdullah bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani] to discuss the terms whereby the company would exploit any oil resources to be found in his territory
• Correspondence discussing the view that Shaikh of Qatar is not one of the Trucial Chiefs and that the autonomy of Qatar was recognized in the (unratified) Anglo-Turkish Agreement of July 1913
• The terms of the British agreement with the Shaikh of Qatar to defend against attack from land and relations between the Shaikh of Qatar and Ibn Saud
• Analysis of Ibn Saud's methods of persuading the Shaikh of Qatar to give the oil concession to Standard Oil rather than the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

The principal correspondents are: the Under-Secretary of State, Colonial Office, London; the India Office, (John Gilbert Laithwaite); the Admiralty; an official of the Petroleum Department, Mines Department (F C Starling); and the Secretary of the Eastern and General Syndicate Limited (H T Adams).