BRITISH PETROLEUM’S ADVENTUROUS STORY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 3

BRITISH PETROLEUM’S ADVENTUROUS STORY

[Reviewed by

R.L.]

denture in Oil. The Story of British Petroleum. By Henry | Longhurst Sidgwick and Jackson. 286 pp. This is the story of one of the ost successful business enterrises of the century. The story egins in Queensland in 1882 when le Mount Morgan gold strike laced a fortune at the disposal of 'illiam Knox D’Arcy. The story kes firm shape in 1908 when, ter a great slice of D’Arcy’s Kune had been spent in Persia’s date rock country, oil gushed I am the discovery well at Mai-in-i-Naften. In April, 1909, the '.glo-Persian Oil Company was rmed to exploit the discovery id this year Anglo-Persian’s sucssor—the British Petroleum Simpany —celebrates a notable th anniversary. | As the last century closed, the 9 1 era was opening—though no--5 le could visualise then that the | »wly-invented internal combus- , on engine would create enorous demand and massive mari ets for petroleum products. At J le end of the 19th century oil | as wanted chiefly for the same < urpose as in Biblical days—as 1 ! e l r lamps. In the United , tates. Rockefeller and his asso- ■; ates had amassed huge fortunes | i finding and marketing illuminj ting oil, and were burning as 1 nbarrassing waste the fractions ! a crude oil that are now used I i aviation spirit and petrol. Capi--5 ilists in Europe were eager to jare in this bonanza, and, among S ther countries, their attention I irned to what seepages had re- | ealed to travellers and explorers ■ ; petroleum territory in Persia. . William Knox D’Arcy particiited in the second European jnture into Persia; the first was i abject failure. D’Arcy’s came :ar to a similar fate. The story Ils how, with £225,000 of his rtune spent, D’Arcy was saved hen. at the instigation of the il Committee of the Admiralty, irmah Oil formed a syndicate hich undertook to provide fin- , ice to investigate, and, if oil , ere found in large quantities, i jvelop D’Arcy’s concessions in >uth Persia. Burmah Oil j ready had an agreement regard;g emergency oil fuel for the , oyal Navy. British Government | iterest begun in this way was jnfirmed when £2.001,000 of overnment funds were invested i the Anglo-Persian Oil Comany on its formation, the overnment taking a voting iterest of just over 50 per cent I The story includes some grand jams about the pioneers in Persia, Ihough in the interests of accuracy It is necessary to demolish popular legends which portray William Knox D’Arcy as withered, Ivizened. and worn, but still with turning faith in an idea, wandering for- years through the rocks fend deserts of Soutp Persia until, felmost at his last gasp, a gusher fef fabulous richness revived him. ["hough unquestionably o be called the father oij Persian >il William Knox D’Arcy, never, jitheF befefißfe after tfte'ffiscovery, set foot in Persia. Exploitation ef oil discovered in the desert ujyolved what is commonplace of Middle East oil, but what was then a great adventure-f-the construction of the pipeline do the seaboard. A Scot. Charles Ritchie, surveyed a route for a pipeline across 130 miles of nnqhjiirai hills to the Persian Gulf, and later had charge of its construction. He had ndne of the facilities' of present-day pipeline constructors earthmovers, tractors for haulage, and automatic welding plants. Ritchie’s pipeline was laid by tribesmen to whom picks and shovels and pipe-tongs were strange implements; his haulage was done by 6000 mules. A colleague of Ritchie’s—R. R. Davidson—began building an ocean terminal on a bare island, where I the great rivers debouch at the head of the Persian Gulf. Davidson’s island became eventually not only a seaport but the' site of the great Abadan refinery. The company’s operations in Persia were involved in both world wars. In 1914, the oil installations in Persia were an obvious and accessible target for the Turks, whose plans against the refinery were thwarted by the Royal Navy and an expeditionary force sent from India. During this period, the legendary German agent, Wassmuss, caused endless trouble to the company, one of his successful moves being to induce tribal Arabs to cut the pipeline to the refinery, an enterprise that paralleled T. E. Lawrence’s forays against the Turks’ railway to Maan. The chapter dealing with the company’s record in the second world war is especially interesting since it includes a great deal of information that will be new to most persons about German activities in the Persia of Shah Reza Khan, and about the entry of British and Russian troops in , August, 1941. Later, the company’s local knowledge and equipment became particularly valuable when . Persia became the principal channel through which British and American aid-to-Russia supplies passed.

<&&&&. Apart from the great service rendered by its tankers, the company made notable contributions in other theatres of war. Engineers of the company devoted technical skill to many projects, including the invention and development of the pipelines that carried petroleum across the English Channel for the liberating armies. The facts of the repudiation of of the company’s concession and the nationalisation of its Persian assets by Dr Mussadeq are given, also a record of events leading to the formation of the consortium which now operates the oilfields and the Abadan refinery. These chapters include many passages of deep human interest, concerning as they do European and Persian employees both suddenly bereft of their jobs. Other chapters tell of the company’s manifold interests—exploratory, refining, marketing and transporting—all over the world. So many success stories call for something that encourages perspective; the chapter on Papua is a reminder that the company has not been favoured everywhere. In Papua the company, in conjunction with American and Australian companies, has invested about £3O million in, so far, abortive exploration. The company has been fortunate in the writer it chose for the anniversary publication. Henry Longhurst is an experienced

write, (he is best known, of ,O F hls wr ‘tings about golf). Persia was familiar to him from wartime experience, and quite obviously his imagination attracted him to what he could ™ k ®. aB ® ntr! »cing task. The book is not free from faults. There are errors of emphasis. Mr Longhurst anticipates this complaint when he says in a preface that the writing of the narrative was not unlike compiling an anthology; “the writer is cohstantly aware HsS*’ W j* n ,dohe,. many of his readers will look as keenly to see what he has left out as what he has put in.” But he surely puts more than is ' warranted ln J° a narrative about British Petroleum Company artivifies when he devotes the better part of two long chapters to the Iraq Petroleum Company, in which B P. holds no more than a 231 per cent, interest - v - Mr Longhurst is at his best when he is describing what he himself has seen. A voyage on a new tanker under trial in the Clyde and a visit to a drilling barge in the Persian Gulf are turned, to examples of excellent descriptive writing. Naturally, in very many cases Mr Longhurst has had to rely on descriptions of events by others. Some are great successes, notably the narrative of the quenching of the great oilwell fire at Naft Safid in 1951 by the American expert Myron Kinley, flown from California specially for the task. Less successful is the second-hand narrative of the “Day of Destiny” in Iraq, when the Baba Gurgur gusher blew in. Thj)s story is selective, not to say incorrect in some places. &&&& It is a great pity that Mr Longhurst has been led to print a great deal of nonsense when he compares old-time drilling and drillers with newer methods and men. Someone could have told him the difference between percussion drilling with stiff rods or poles and with a wire. The expert percussion driller was an artist who used engine speed to flick his drilling bit at rock far beneath the surface, much as a stockman makes the end of a stockwhip travel much further than the movement of his wrist. The oldtime drillers may have been rough and ready types, but it does 'far less than justice to men to whom the company owes a lot to say of Poles, Americans, and Canadians that “almost all were inefficient.” The development at that time of oilfields not only in Persia, but all over the world testifies to the absurdity of such generalisations. There is no question that modern tools and drilling rigs are more efficient and better looking than they used to be—but so are the clubs Mr Longhurst uses compared with those James Braid used. The Illustration need be carried , no further. A book that many will want to refer to would have been better Ste as not be improved upon. As for the illustrations, they are excellent Some, especially photographs of sea and desert, are superb photographic studies.