Chapter 17 rock burning secrets

By 1905, the British Secret Intelligence Service and the British government finally recognized the strategic significance of this new fuel.The problem is that the UK has no oil of its own and must rely on the US, Russia or Mexico to supply it.Even in peaceful times, this situation is unacceptable, and once a war breaks out, it is simply impossible to rely entirely on foreign oil supplies.A year earlier, in 1904, Colonel Fisher had risen to the highest command of the navy, Lord of the Admiralty.Fisher immediately formed a committee "to consider and make proposals for securing the supply of oil to the British Navy".

At that time, in Persia and the Arabian Gulf, British activities were not unrestricted.The Arabian Gulf was still part of the Ottoman Empire, and Persia was not part of the British Empire.For many years, Britain has maintained consulates in Bushehr and Bandar Abbas, stationed warships in the Gulf, to prevent other countries from entering this strategic waters, close to Britain's most important colony - India. In 1892, Lord Curzon, later Viceroy of India, wrote about Persia: "I regard it as a deliberate affront to Great Britain, a wanton violation of the status quo, and a Provocative acts of war."

But in 1905, through the actions of the notorious spy spy Sidney Reilly, the British government was given a highly unusual and significant exclusive right to extract oil from the Middle East, which at the time was believed to contain vast deposits of oil that had yet to be discovered. be mined. In early 1905, British intelligence sent Riley (born Sigmund, Odessa, Russia) to William Knox Darcy, a paranoid Australian amateur geologist and engineer, looking for opportunities to exploit Persian deposits s right. Darcy is a devout Christian, obsessed with history, and firmly believes in various legends about the "pillars of fire" lit in the priesthood of the ancient Persian god of light, Omazda. These "pillars of fire" all originated from Zoroastrian priests Zoroastrianism believes that there are two hostile forces in the universe, the dark god Ahriman and the light god Ormuzd, and the entire universe is a battlefield for their eternal conflict. ——Translator] Burning some kind of oil, this oil seeps out from some of the local rocks.He spent years locating ancient Persian temples in search of oil.He made numerous visits to London to seek financial support for his expeditions, but British bankers gave him less and less support.

As an engineer, Darcy knows Iran very well. In the 1890s, the Neo-Persian king Muzaffar al-Din worked to modernize his country (today's Iran).He summoned Darcy and asked him to help Persia build railways and promote industrial development. In 1901, in exchange for a large amount of cash in advance, the king granted Darcy a royal franchise: within 60 years, he could freely explore for oil on Persian land without any restrictions, and all oil-related discoveries were made. All property will belong to him. Darcy paid about $20,000 in cash and agreed to pay the King a 16 percent royalty from the sale whenever he found oil.In this way, the paranoid Australian obtained one of the most valuable legal instruments of the time, which granted him and his heirs or assigns, friends, the privilege of drilling oil, which lasted until 1961.The first time Darcy actually found oil was in the Shushtel area in the northern Persian Gulf.

Reilly managed to find Darcy in 1905.At that time, Darcy, through the Rothschild Bank Group of Paris, was planning to sign an agreement with France on the joint development of oil, and was preparing to return to his hometown and return to his motherland, Australia. Reilly pretended to be a priest, took advantage of Darcy's pious religious beliefs, and used various tricks to persuade Darcy to transfer his exclusive rights to exploit Persian oil to the Anglo-Persian Petroleum Company, a "pious Christian" British company.Scottish financier Sir Stracona was recommended by the British government and became an important shareholder of the Anglo-Persian Petroleum Company, but the position of the British government in the Anglo-Persian Petroleum Company was kept secret.Reilly thus gave Britain its first important oil resource.