Persia

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

1922. An American Director-General of Finances, Dr. Arthur C. Millspaugh, former economic adviser of the American State Department, was appointed in August, 1922, to act as financial adviser of the Persian Government. Tacna-Arica dispute with Chile, (See TACNA-ARICA DISPUTE). PETROLEUM RESOURCES. Among the most important questions of the time in all the industrial nations of the world is that of the future supply of oil. Competition for control of the world's reserves promises to play a leading part in all international relations of the immediate future. The United States stands first in both production and consumption. Out of an estimated 8,743,- 000,000 barrels of oil thus far produced in the world 5,430,000,000 barrels or 62 per cent were produced in the United States. This percentage has even been raised in recent years and the high deand velopment of the American industry is shown by the fact that in 1920, 258,000 wells out of a total of 277,000 (93 per cent) were in this country. An average of over 30,000 wells are sunk here annually. This Thi high development is indicative, however, of approaching exhaustion of existing fields. It is estimated at present that American reserves amount to only nine billion barrels, equal to 20 years supply at the pre present rate of consumption. Large imports of oil are made from Mexico and other sources, but the United States is also an exporting nation. Its reserves are being used up at present more than twelve times as fast as those of the remaining oil countries of the world, whose total supplies are estimated to be sufficient for 250 years under present conditions. The general policy of the United States has heretofore been to allow exploitation of its oil fields by foreign companies on equal terms with domestic although under a national leasing law of 1920, aliens whose own countries were closed to Americans were debarred from holding interests in certain leases here. In regard to foreign fields in undeveloped countries, the United States has strongly insisted on the maintenance of the policy of the open door, protesting in particular against exclusion from territories recently belonging to Turkey and given as mandates to European countries as one of the results of the common victory of all the Allied and Associated Powers in the World War. A British-French agreement of 1920 dividing oil concessions in Mesopotamia led to the refusal of the United States to recognize the British ment was abrogated in 1922, but the put. tion of the validity of conflicting American concessions re- 1 apparently being settled by compromise arrangements (November, 1922). A similar situation in Palestine was amicably settled earlier in the year. Thus Great Britain, the second largest consumer of oil, has accepted the principle of the open door in the most important of her mandated territories. But in other important portions of her Empire, a contrary policy still prevails in regard to oil concessions to foreigners. Production in the British Isles themselves is small, and of British imports in 1920, 61 per cent came from the United States. The largest oil production in the British Empire is that of India, about 1,200,000 tons annually, but this producan tion is insufficient for local needs, being supplemented by imports chiefly from the United States, the Dutch East Indies, and Persia. The great efforts of British statesmen have been directed to the acquisition of oil concessions outside of the Empire, notably in Mesopotamia, where the Turkish Petroleum Company is controlled by Great Britain; in Persia, exploited by the Anglo-Persian Company; by in Egypt through the Anglo-Egyptian Company; and in Russia, Rumania, Macedonia, the Dutch East Indies, China, South America, the Philippines, and even the United States through the acquisitions of the Royal Dutch-Shell Transport combine, which is largely controlled by British interests and produces 11 per cent of the world's output of oil. In general, however, it may be said that there is at the present time an apparent disposition on the part of British and American oil interests to work side by side, with mutual concessions, a fact sions which has lately been increasingly evident by the appearance of American companies in conjunction with the British in such countries as Persia, Palestine, and even Mesopotamia. Of other great oil-producing countries, Russia is at present temporarily crippled, but its oil fields include some of the richest in the world, above all, the famous fields of Baku. Rumania and Galicia are likewise rich in oil, and Czechoslovakia is now being explored under a contract with the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. In South America, ica, except Peru and Argentina, oil production is still in its early stages; but Mexican production, in spite of the long distractions of that country, constituted 23 per cent of the world's output in 1920. American companies conmandate of that country. The agree-trol the largest percentage of this out- Oil Shale. One of the future sources of oil lies in the large deposits of oil shale from which oil is obtainable by distillation. Immense deposits of this shale are distributed over the United States, estimated to contain 80,000,000,- 000 barrels of oil, but as yet they have not been worked to any extent, the cost being high in comparison with existing production. Oil production from shale has been carried on in Scotland for over half a century and to-day is the main source of oil within the British Isles. The Scottish production at the present time amounts to about 165,000 tons of oil annually, this amount necessitating the mining of 3,000,000 tons of shale. Other countries with extensive shale deposits are: France, Spain, Italy, and Serbia in Europe, and Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Turkey.