Talk:Berlin–Baghdad railway/Archives/2014

Oil fields in Iraq
Oil wasn't discovered in Iraq until 1927 (see Iraq Petroleum Company)

This sentence: The Germans gained access to and ownership of oil fields in Iraq,[citation needed] and with a line to the port of Basra would have gained better access to the eastern parts of the German colonial empire, by avoiding the Suez Canal.

does not seem accurate.

Wikiigb (talk) 20:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Turkish Petroleum Company

Calouste Gulbenkian The forerunner of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) was the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), which grew out of the growing belief, in the late 19th century, that Mesopotamia (now Syria and Iraq) contained substantial reservoirs of oil.

Since Mesopotamia was part of the Ottoman Empire, early negotiations for an oil concession centered on the capital of the empire, İstanbul, which was then known in the West as Constantinople, where the Ottoman sultan and his government resided. The first interest was shown by Imperial German banks and companies, already involved in the building of the Berlin-Baghdad railway, followed by British interests. In 1911, in an attempt to bring together competing British and German interests in the region, a British company known as African and Eastern Concession Ltd, was formed.[5][6][7]

In 1912, this company became the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), formed with the purpose of acquiring concessions from the Ottoman Empire to explore for oil in Mesopotamia. The owners were a group of large European companies—Deutsche Bank, the Anglo Saxon Oil Company (a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell), the National Bank of Turkey (a British concern)—and Turkish-born Armenian businessman Calouste Gulbenkian.[8] The driving force behind its creation was Gulbenkian, and the largest single shareholder was the British Government-controlled Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which by 1914 held 50% of the shares. TPC received a promise of a concession from the Ottoman government but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 put a stop to all exploration plans.[9][10]

Deutsche Bank brought with it a concession granted to the Anatolian Railway Company to explore for minerals and oil along a 40 km (25 mi)-wide strip either side of its proposed railway in Mesopotamia. On 28 June 1914, the Turkish grand vizier confirmed the promise of a concession to TPC, but the outbreak of World War I put paid to TPC's plans.[11]

When the Ottoman Empire was broken up in the aftermath of the war, the question of shareholding in TPC became a major issue at the 1920 San Remo conference, where the future of all non-Turkish and Arab-majority areas of the former Ottoman Empire were substantially decided. A rising demand for petroleum during the war had demonstrated to the big powers the importance of having their own sources of oil. Since one of the original partners of TPC had been German, the French demanded this share as the spoils of war. This was agreed the by San Remo Oil Agreement, much to the annoyance of the Americans who felt excluded from Middle Eastern oil and demanded an "open door".[8] After prolonged and sometimes sharp diplomatic exchanges, U.S. oil companies were permitted to buy into the TPC, but it would take several years until the negotiations were completed. BCameron54 01:19, 2 January 2016 (UTC)