Early histroy and Background
The discovery of oil in Persia in 1908 led directly to the creation
of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that today is known as BP. In
the 1920s, the leading seven oil companies agreed to regulate
the world production and supply of oil, partly through joint
ventures. Thus, in 1928, BP and Shell formed the Consolidated Oil
Company primarily to market their oil and oil products in the
non-oil producing Middle East and Eastern and Southern Africa.
But the 1928 agreement also designated ‘Home Areas’ which
would be reserved for one company alone, and Singapore was in
Shell’s ‘Red Area’ in which BP agreed not to compete.
That is where matters stood before an attempt by BP in 1946 to
question the right of the Company to open bunkering facilities in
No.1 discovery well at Masjid-i-Suleiman, 1908.
Singapore for world shipping as well as for its own fleet. In fact
the site in Singapore identified by BP was reserved for Shell, and the lawyers believed that while the 1928
Agreement and its 1933 revision did not explicitly include bunkering, the spirit of the contract suggested
otherwise and BP withdrew.
Although the Consolidated Oil Company lasted until the 1970s, by the 1960s, the joint ventures that had been
created in earlier years (such as Shell-Mex BP) were seen as a restraint to competition, and a more liberal
view on business was emerging in the oil industry. In this atmosphere, Shell did not oppose BP’s