British-organized oil company, based on a concession agreement with the shah of Persia, 1901; nationalized by Iran, 1951.
The history of the Anglo - Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) goes back to 1901 when a British engineer, William Knox D'Arcy, obtained a concession from Persia's shah giving him exclusive rights for the discovery, exploitation, and export of Petroleum in return for 16 percent of his annual profits and 20,000 pounds sterling in cash and another 20,000 pounds sterling in paid-up shares of stock in the venture enterprise. Oil was discovered in 1903. In 1905, D'Arcy became a part owner of the newly founded British Oil Company. In 1908, the British government bought D'Arcy's shares. In 1909, the Anglo - Persian Oil Company (APOC) was formed.
Because of its bias, the 1901 concession was not ratified by the parliament of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 - 1911. Moreover, APOC did not consistently follow the terms of the agreement. For example, during World War I from 1914 to 1920, oil output had increased from 274,000 to 1,385,000 tons (250,000 to 1,255,000 t) annually; by 1933, the company had made a profit of 200 million pounds sterling. By contrast, Persia had received only some 10 million of the 32 million pounds sterling due contractually - less than one-third of the share to which it was entitled by the concession.
In 1933, Reza Pahlavi terminated the concession of 1901 and concluded a new agreement with the British that reduced the area of concession from 400,000 to 100,000 square miles (1,036,000 to 260,000 sq. km), assured a minimum payment of 225,000 to 300,000 pounds sterling annually as a tax on the production of crude petroleum, and provided for a specific royalty of 4 shillings per ton of the oil sold. Iran was also to receive 20 percent of the net profit over and above a dividend guarantee of 671,250 pounds sterling. The agreement changed the company's name to the Anglo - Iranian Oil Company and, in 1935, Persia officially became Iran.
For Britain, the new agreement had certain advantages over the 1901 concession. It extended British control over Iranian oil for an additional thirty-two years, until 1993, while the previous concession was due to expire in 1961. Unlike the concession of 1901, the 1933 agreement was not a contract between a private individual and the shah of Iran, which could be terminated without much difficulty. The 1933 agreement had the character of public law because it had been ratified by the Iranian parliament; it could not be annulled without entailing political complications. The 1933 agreement, however, was not as beneficial to Iran, and some of its terms were particularly disadvantageous. For example, prices for refined petroleum products in Iran were based upon average Romanian or Gulf of Mexico f.o.b. (free on board) prices - whichever was lower - plus actual transportation and distribution costs, less a 10 percent discount. The bias of the agreement was argued based on the production cost of oil in the Middle East averaging only US $1.2 per ton compared to US$12.45 per ton in the United States. The AIOC's labor and housing policies were also less than satisfactory from the Iranian perspective.
The Anglo - Iranian oil disputes were not resolved amicably; they culminated in the nationalization of the British-run Iranian oil industry in 1951 under the premiership of Mohammad Mossadegh. AIOC then became the National Iranian Oil Company.
Bibliography
Cable, James. Intervention at Abadan: Plan Buccaneer. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.
Elm, Mostafa. Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992.
Moaddel, Mansoor. "State-Centered vs. Class-Centered Perspectives in International Politics: The Case of U.S. and British Participation in the 1953 Coup against Premiere Mosaddeq in Iran." Studies in Comparative International Development (Summer 1989): 3 - 22.
Painter, David S. The United States, Great Britain, and Mossadegh. Pittsburgh, PA: Pew Charitable Trusts; Washington, DC: Distributed by Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 1993.
Walden, Jerrold L. "The International Petroleum Cartel in Iran - Private Power and the Public Interest." Journal of Public Law 11, no. 1 (Spring 1962): 64 - 121.
Oil Blowout Fumes Sickening People In Atlanta--Geologists Says: "Where Are The Logs?"
by Monica Davis
Chris Landau has made a living as an engineer for decades. South African by birth, American citizen by naturalization and choice, Landau is at odds with many mainstream geologists. He is a proponent of the inorganic oil creation process. This process differs from what we were all taught in school. It poses that oil is the byproduct of natural deep earth processes and that oil doesn't come "from decayed plant matter."
As a product from earth processes, the stuff we call oil contains a variety of toxic, deadly chemicals. Landau says the Gulf catastrophe is caused by an oil well blow out. This is where gas pressure builds up and blows the well head. In this particular case, not only has the well head been blown, but the massive pressure inside the well, driven by a pool of gas that is thousands of miles deep and 20 miles across, have fractured the sea bottom. This has created additional splits in the earth, which allow more oil to bleed out of the earth, like black blood spewing from the earth's arteries.
Landau says this is not a "spill." A spill is finite. This is a blow out, an explosion of oil spewing out of the earth under great pressure. What is spewing out, blasting out with more pressure than we comprehend, is a toxic mixture of various chemicals, some of which can kill you at a mere 400 parts per million.
There's hydrogen sulfide, benzene, methane, pentane, propane, ethane, butane, and a host of other combinations of hydrogen and carbon. All are dangerous in various concentrations. They are dangerous to breath and dangerous to touch. They cause cancer, lung damage and death. Some of them are so dangerous they cause genetic damage, passing their destruction onto generations yet unborn.
Landau says that the methane problem we have does not come from cow farts. The increasing concentration of methane in the atmosphere is often caused by methane gases, escaping from deep in the earth.
Not everything on Earth is human-friendly. Some of those deep earth compounds are radioactive, poisonous and dangerous to the human and animal life which live on the surface of the planet. The earth has a variety of processes and elements, each specific to different parts of this world we live on. Just as the earth changes from the outer reaches of the atmosphere, so it changes at various depths within the planet.
And the changes are explained in different ways, depending upon whether you believe in a biologic theory of oil formation, or in the inorganic/abiogenic theory. However, whether oil is formed by deep earth process over short periods of time, or longer periods of time by decomposition of plant material, the fact remains: oil and petroleum products are dangerous to human health.
We can not breath or touch oil/oil byproducts without damaging our lungs, generating cancers or causing genetic damage to ourselves and our unborn children. Crude oil and its components are dangerous to organic life, to the oceans and life therein.
The various components of oil: methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, et cetera, make great fuels at a great cost. They are polluting, poisonous, and bio-hazards, in their most controlled states, and when they are released through well blow outs, they poison water, air, and organisms which live in the air and water--including humans.
Landau says people have to understand that crude oil and gasoline are mixtures of about 200 organic compounds. The most toxic are benzene, which is 300-500 times more toxic than anything else. Two parts per hundred will kill you: 2% is deathly. Hydrogen sulfide is also dangerous: hydrogen sulfide is deadly at 400PPM (parts per million).
Landau explains the process, where the deadly gas comes from "Hydrogen sulfide is coming out of the earth itself, part of deep down below, and it comes with volcanoes. It has nothing to do with the oil. Oil blow out just gives it an exit means. At lower concentrations, hydrogen sulfide gives off a rotten egg smell, but can't smell at at 150PPM. "
This is what makes the stuff so dangerous. You can't smell it at higher concentrations, and it will kill you at higher concentrations. One blogger was curious about the "canary in the mine theory." He wanted to know how many birds died from poison fumes at sea. Who know? A lot of wildlife has died at sea, sinking to the ocean floor never to be seen or counted by human beings.
What are the levels today? Why are people in Atlanta reporting breathing problems? Is it because they are breathing air poisoned by the BP well blow out? Bloggers in Atlanta are worried about how the oil well blow out is affecting them.
I also live in the Atlanta area, and we have so many people up here feeling sore throats, constant slight headache, extreme fatigue, nauseous - ALL WHILE GOING OUTSIDE - AND ALL ONLY WHEN YOU LOOK AT RADAR AND SEE THE RAIN/WIND FLOW COMING UP FROM THE GULF/SOUTH INTO GEORGIA.
Landau wants to know why well supervisors, geologists, and government regulators waited so long to report the problem. Having worked on more than 100 wells, Landau says that the reporting process has several safeguards. "Mud logs", that is well operational logs are kept on portable thumb drives and are emailed to various geophysicists and government regulatory agencies every six to twelve hours.
He says this blow out could not have come as a surprise. At least not to the well operators. How bad is this blow out? We have already seen breathing problems in the Gulf region, and experts say the coming hurricane season is going to be a very active one. If the blow out continues spewing millions of gallons in the ocean, how much of theenvironment will be damaged, and how much will be totally destroyed, rendered un-inhabitable for human, animal, or plant life?
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