875.6363/107
The Chargé in Great Britain (Wheeler) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 15.]
Sir: In reply to your instruction No. 927 of July 9, 1923, relative to interviews had between Secretaries of the Embassy and certain officers of the Standard Oil Company of New York concerning the oil situation in Albania, I have the honor to state that the substance of the interviews was as follows: that the Anglo-Persian had secured a concession from the Albanian Government covering the entire country; that the Standard Oil was either working for or had succeeded in getting a concession from the Government covering a part of the country which, as far as the Standard knew, Anglo-Persian geologists did not consider to be at all promising; that the Anglo-Persian concession and the Standard’s (if it had one) had not been ratified by the Legislature largely due to the opposition made by the rival company; that the Standard proposed a settlement with the Anglo-Persian along the following lines:—
Each company to disclose to the other the areas in which it was actually interested, i. e. in which it meant to drill for oil; in the [Page 391] event that the two companies were actively interested in the same territory they were to take half the product derived from that territory and, in the event there was no overlapping of land in which they were actually so interested, they were to proceed independently with their examination and development work. In the event that the Anglo-Persian did not desire to disclose the part of Albania in which it was actually interested, the Standard proposed that the entire country should be developed on a fifty-fifty basis.
The Anglo-Persian declined the Standard offer.
I have [etc.]