The Shadowy World of Oil Politics: Iran's Ultimate Insider & Petroleum Kingpin (1997)

• published: 19 Sep 2014
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The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was an English company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and in 1954 it became the British Petroleum Company (BP), one of the antecedents of the modern BP plc. Later in March 1951, the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) voted to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings, and shortly thereafter Iranians democratically elected a widely respected statesman and champion of nationalisation, Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister.[17] This led to the Abadan Crisis where foreign countries agreed not to purchase Iranian oil under British pressure and the Abadan refinery was closed. AIOC withdrew from Iran and increased output of its other reserves in the Persian Gulf. Mossadeq broke off negotiations with AIOC in July 1951 when the AIOC threatened to pull its employees out of Iran and Britain warned tanker owners that "the receipts from the Iranian government would not be accepted on the world market."[18] The British ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranian government and explored the possibility of an invasion to occupy the oil area. US President Harry S. Truman and US ambassador to Iran Henry F. Grady opposed intervention in Iran but needed Britain's support for the Korean War. Efforts by the U.S. through the International Court of Justice were made to settle the dispute, but a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement, with recognition of nationalization, was rejected by both the British government and Prime Minister Mossadegh. As the months went on, the crisis became acute. By mid-1952, an attempt by the Shah to replace Mossadegh backfired and led to riots against the Shah and perceived foreign intervention; Mossadegh returned with even greater power. At the same time however, his coalition was weakening as Britain’s boycott of Iranian oil eliminated a major source of government revenue, and strategically made Iranians poorer and thus unhappier by the day. Britain was unable to subvert Mossadegh as its embassy and officials had been evicted from Iran in October 1952, but successfully appealed in the U.S. to exaggerated anti-communist sentiments, depicting both Mossadegh and Iran as unstable and likely to fall to communism as they were weakened. If Iran fell, the "enormous assets" of "Iranian oil production and reserves" would fall into Communist control, as would "in short order the other areas of the Middle East".[19] By 1953 both the US and the UK had new, more anti-communist and interventionist administrations and the United States no longer opposed intervention in Iran. The anti-Mossadeq plan was orchestrated under the code-name 'Operation Ajax' by CIA, and 'Operation Boot' by SIS (MI6).[20][21][22] In August the American CIA with the help of bribes to politicians, soldiers, mobs, and newspapers, and information from the British embassy and secret service, organized a riot which gave the Shah an excuse to remove Mosaddeq. The Shah seized the opportunity and issued an edict forcefully removing the immensely popular and democratically-elected Mosaddeq from power when General Fazlollah Zahedi led tanks to Mosaddeq's residence and arrested him. On 21 December 1953, he was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison followed by life in prison. He was kept under house arrest at his Ahmadabad residence, until his death, on 5 March 1967. With a pro-Western Shah and the new pro-Western Prime Minister, Fazlollah Zahedi, Iranian oil began flowing again and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954, tried to return to its old position. However, public opinion was so opposed that the new government could not permit it. Under pressure from the United States, British Petroleum were forced to accept membership in a consortium of companies which would bring Iranian oil back on the international market. It was incorporated in London in 1954 as a holding company called Iranian Oil Participants Ltd (IOP). The founding members of IOP included British Petroleum (40%), Gulf Oil (later Chevron, 8%), Royal Dutch Shell (14%), and Compagnie Française des Pétroles (later Total S.A., 6%). The four Aramco partners—Standard Oil of California (SoCal, later Chevron), Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon, then ExxonMobil), Standard Oil Co. of New York (later Mobil, then ExxonMobil), and Texaco (later Chevron)—each held an 8% stake in the holding company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Persian_Oil_Company