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oil refining centres in the region. 161 Although the company was registered in

Canada with its shares owned by the Standard Oil Company of California and the

Texas Oil Company, the majority of its management was British and its status was

that of a British-operated company. 162

From a global perspective and in light of the Cold War, Bahrain and its oil

fields were of a strategic importance to the British in view of the threat of Soviet

advance into the region as a COS memorandum from April 1952 revealed. The

British had devised a plan to protect Bahrain, its oil fields, refinery, and oil passage

from any dreaded Soviet penetration into the area. For the defense plan twenty-

four frigates and thirty-four minesweepers, one infantry division, and ten squadrons

were allocated. The plan was devised with the assumption that both Iraq and Iran

had fallen into the hands of the enemy.

The plan was broached with Mosaddegh still in power as it was feared that

the Soviets might wish to take advantage of the situation in the Gulf. The

memorandum estimated that the Soviets could reach Bahrain’s oil fields within sixty

days after gaining complete control of both Iraq and Iran. Furthermore the

importance associated with Bahrain’s oil fields was attached to the anxiety that

Kuwait’s oil fields (also under British protection) would capitulate following Soviet

annexation of Iraq and Iran. Hence the next line of defence for Britain would be

Bahrain and its oil fields. 163

161 S.H. Longrigg, Oil in the Middle East: Its Discovery and Development (London: 1961), 219.
162 Hay, The Persian Gulf, 94; and J.H.D. Belgrave, Welcome to Bahrain (London: 1973), 48.
163 TNA, DEFE 4/53/58, C.O.S. (52)58H, Defence of the Bahrein Oil Area in Isolation, 9 April 1952.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 52