SALE OF OIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 92, 20 April 1938, Page 9

SALE OF OIL

CONTRACT BY MEXICO

DEAL WITH MR. F. W. RICKETT

NEW YORK, April 19,

The Mexican Government is reported to have made a contract with Mr. F. W. Rickett for the sale of a quantity of oil at the current world price, says the Mexico City correspondent of the United Press news agency.

A message from Mexico City on March 31 announced that Mr. F. W. Rickett conferred with the Government, which offered large contracts for Government-produced oil priced

well below world prices. The impression prevailed that should the scheme prove sufficiently successful to provide funds to pay the expropriated companies, a solution might be found.

Mr. Rickett became internationally prominent in August, 1935, when Italy's aggressive attitude towards Abyssinia was creating great concern, by an announcement he had secured from the Emperor Haile Selassie sole rights to oil, mineral, and other natural resources in half the Abyssinian Empire for a period of 75 years. Mr. Rickett was acting as the envoy of the African Exploitation and Development Company, an American concern. It was generally considered that the concession was a move on Haile Selassie's part to accentuate American and British interest in preserving peace between Italy and Abyssinia. Britain, .however, immediately advised the Emperor to withhold the concession, and the United States Government refused to become involved in the dispute. It was subsequently announced by the American Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, that as the result of discussions he had with oil company officials they had agreed to withdraw from the concession.