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sanctioned, official US support for companies in the region throughout the 1930s fell consid­
erably. I he SoCal-Saudi concession, for example, had been obtained without any kind of
government support; the company had acted on its own initiative. One of the reasons for this
was the fact that by then, fifteen years after the end of World War I, oil was viewed by
government as much less important than previously, and the US had an abundance of the
resource; in 1936 alone, for example, US production reached the level of one billion barrels of
oil. 13 Moreover, the fact that SoCal was able to obtain the major Hasa concession convinced
the government that the oil companies did not require official support.

The British government, on the other hand, worked very closely with IPC and APOC, in
the latter of which, of course, it held the controlling shares. Inevitable comparisons were
drawn by British officers in the field regarding the respective behaviour of British and
American companies. The rather bitter observation made by Longrigg(and referred to above)
is one example, and reveals certain basic differences. The slow and cautious approach of the
IPC to the Hasa concession reflects the attitude assumed by that company; its behaviour was
similar to that of a government bureaucracy rather than a large profit-making organisation
which knew how and when to take risks. Its offer to King Abdel Aziz of rupees as payment was
in sharp contrast to the SoCal offer of gold. Despite the firm advantage it held as a British
company to which the King was favourably inclined, it inevitably lost the possibility of gaining
a foothold in what was to become a singularly important oil-producing country.

Furthermore, the geologists of APOC did not recognise the oil potential of Saudi Arabia
and Bahrain, while the geologists of the US companies had already confirmed the great
possibilities of these regions.

It is interesting to note that in 1975, despite the great advantages of hindsight, the
negotiator for APOC in the Kuwait concession during the 1930s continued to explain the
behaviour of the company in non-commercial terms. In his study on The first Kuwait Oil
Concession Agreement, 14 A.H.T. Chisholm recounted the great strides made by Holmes with
the ruler of Kuwait by June 1932 as the negotiator for GOC, and the contrasting sluggishnesf
of APOC. One of the reasons the author gave was: ” ... that up to that time not a drop ofoil had
been found anywhere on the Arab side of the Gulf. ...”,s Another was that the heavily
depressed state of world trade following the Wall Street slump of 1929 and the concurrent
world glut of oil had led the major international oil companies to agree to avoid further
overproduction. APOC and other oil companies were therefore reluctant to “embark on
potentially expensive new ventures unless in extraordinarily favourable conditions.” 16

These remarks, of course, overlook the fact that American oil companies, despite their
super-abundance of oil, were still willing to pay generously for concessions (the Hasa agree- .
ment was signed one year later). And that to be absolutely sure of a venture was more in
keeping with the process of government than with that of big business.

The most telling reflection of the British attitude at the time was the coldness and almost
distaste with which Holmes was treated by British officials of the Colonial Office and India
Office both at home and in the field. He was British (New Zealand was a Dominion), he
represented a British company (EGS) and he was remarkably optimistic of the oil potential of
the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Yet, from the beginning, when he obtained the 1922 option for
Hasa, he was regarded with suspicion and dislike by his fellow Britons. The extraordinary cold
shoulder he was given repeatedly can only be explained by the fact that, to British civil
servants, he was regarded as belonging to that social grouping loosely referred to as‘trade”.

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