In
January 15, 1902, ‘Abd-al’-Aziz ibn ‘
Abd al-Rahman Al
Sa’ud took
Riyadh from the Rashid tribe. In 1913, his forces captured the province of al-Hasa, from the
Ottoman Turks. In
1922 he completed his conquest of the Nejd, and in 1925 he conquered the Hijaz. In 1932, the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed with ‘Abd-al’-Aziz as king.
Without stability in the region, the search for oil would have been difficult, as evidenced by early oil exploration in neighbouring countries such as
Yemen and
Oman.
Prior to
1938, there were three main factors that triggered the search for oil in
Arabia:
The discovery of oil by the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company at Masjid-i-Sulaiman in the mountains of north-western
Persia in
1908; but the consensus of geological opinion at the time was that there was no oil on the
Arabian peninsula, although there were rumours of an oil seepage at
Qatif on the eastern seaboard of al-Hasa, the eastern province of Arabia.
The demand for oil during
World War I. It became obvious that oil was going to be a crucial resource in warfare for the foreseeable future.Examples that proved this were “
General Gallieni’s commandeering of the
Paris taxi fleet to ferry soldiers to the front. This happened when the city seemed about to fall”.In addition to this,
Germany’s shortage of oil supplies hindered their ability to produce aircraft, automobiles, and engines. The allies took advantage of this by producing thousands of vehicles to aid their war effort.
The onset of the
Great Depression. Prior to the depression, a major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from
100,000 to below 40,000.This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused
King ‘Abd-al’-Aziz to get serious about the search for oil.
- published: 17 Mar 2016
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