San Remo Oil Agreement

The San Remo Oil Agreement was an agreement between Britain and France signed at the San Remo conference on 24 April 1920.[1] As a result of the agreement, the French Compagnie Française de Petroles (CFP)[a] acquired the 25% share held by Deutsche Bank in the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC). The other shareholders were (same as in 1914): the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), in which the British government held a controlling interest, with 47.5%, the Anglo Saxon Petroleum Co (wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch-Shell), with 22.5% and the remaining 5% belonged to Calouste Gulbenkian.[3]

The Turkish Petroleum Company was still a paper-only company in 1920. The composition of the TPC changed again in 1928. Only in 1925 did TPC get a concession for development from Iraq. In 1927 the company found oil in Iraq and was renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1929. In 1934 production from the Kirkuk field started to reach world markets.

Background

On 19 March 1914, the British and German governments had signed an agreement whereby the interest of National Bank of Turkey in TPC was transferred to APOC. The newly reconstituted TPC then applied for a concession for Mesopotamian oil which was granted subject to various conditions at which point World War I intervened. In December 1918, the British expropriated the 25% share of Deutsche Bank in TPC.[4]: 269 

It was this latter share that was ultimately to be given to the French under the San Remo oil agreement. There were prior abortive attempts at an agreement, preliminary and then final version of the Long-Bérenger Agreement,[5]: 148 & 172  then the Greenwood-Bérenger Agreement before the final San Remo version. All versions can be seen at.[5]: 172–8 

The agreement delimited the oil interests in Russia and Romania, British (British Mandate of Mesopotamia) and French colonies. The initial agreement takes the names of the British petroleum minister, Sir Walter Long, and the French petroleum minister, Henri Bérenger, who negotiated the agreement.[6]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Initially held by the French government and transferred on creation of CFP in 1924[2]

References

  1. ^ "1920 League of Nations Treaty Series". WorldLII.
  2. ^ "MILESTONES: 1921-1936, The 1928 Red Line Agreemen". US Department of State. Archived from the original on 29 July 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2012.
  3. ^ Zedalis, Rex J. (2009). The Legal Dimensions of Oil and Gas in Iraq: Current Reality and Future Prospects. Cambridge University Press. p. 264. ISBN 9780521766616.
  4. ^ Earle, Edward Meade 1924 The Turkish Petroleum Company:A Study in Oleaginous Diplomacy Political Science Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 265-279
  5. ^ a b Marian Kent 1976 Oil & Empire:British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil 1900-1920 Macmillan Press ISBN 9781349020812
  6. ^ G. Gareth Jones (1977). The British Government and the Oil Companies 1912–1924: the Search for an Oil Policy. The Historical Journal, 20, pp 647-672 doi:10.1017/S0018246X00011286