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Iraq / History / Development of Oil Fields

In 1931 oil reserves in Iraq were exploited by an agreement signed by the Iraqi government and the Iraq Petroleum Company, an internationally owned organization composed of Royal-Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, French oil companies, and the Standard Oil companies of New York and New Jersey. The agreement granted the Iraq Petroleum Company the sole right to develop the oil fields of the Mosul region, in return for which the company guaranteed to pay the Iraqi government annual royalties. Iraq gained independence in 1932. In 1934 the company opened an oil pipeline from Mosul to Tripoli, Lebanon, and a second one to Haifa, in what is now Israel, was completed in 1936.

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