United States capital is supreme in the commercial control of the petroleum industry in the Western Hemisphere; while British and British-Dutch interests easily dominate the petroleum situation in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Commercial control of petroleum is determined mainly through ownership by operating companies of lands, leases, or concessions. State ownership is rare, although in Argentina the petroleum industry is owned and operated by the state. The British government controls by direct ownership of a majority of the voting stock, the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., which gives it a monopoly of the Persian field, through the concession of an area of 500 square miles from Persia to the company, and closes the field to the enterprise of the United States or other nations; moreover through ramifications of this company, the British government is extending its hold to other parts of the world.
In the United States the commercial control of the petroleum industry is in the hands of the “Standard Oil Group.” British and British-Dutch companies in the United States control a production of about 11,000,000 barrels a year, out of a total of 335,000,000. In the important region of Mexico, which now takes second place in production, the commercial control is entirely in the hands of foreigners: American interests control 65 per cent. and British and Dutch interests 32 per cent.
In the Eastern Hemisphere, the productive field of the Dutch East Indies is under absolute control of British-Dutch interests, the Royal Dutch-Shell Syndicate. Prospecting licenses and concessions are granted only to Dutch subjects and to Dutch companies, and this, with the economic monopoly of the controlling British-Dutch interests, prevents foreign enterprise.
The absolute and exclusive control of the great oil fields of Persia and Mesopotamia by the British government will be confirmed and extended by the extension of the British Empire over those portions of the Turkish Empire which she won by force of arms.
In Russia the commercial control of the great petroleum industry seems to be British, the predominant interests being British, Franco-British, and British-Dutch (Royal Dutch-Shell Syndicate). The principal producing areas in Russia are or were till recently under British military control.
The production of India (Burma) is entirely in British hands.
“The general policy of the British Empire seems to be to control all oil development and restrict operations by foreign capital.” Such restrictions by government regulations exist in Australia, Canada, India, Barbados, British Guiana, British Honduras, Trinidad and other colonies.
In the oil industry, then, we have a remarkable and striking division of the world’s wealth between the two great Anglo-Saxon nations, America and Great Britain. No mineral lends itself so readily as oil to transportation and hence to commercial control. According to the present production, American interests are largely in excess. However, the British control of the great fields of the Eastern Hemisphere, many of them only partly developed, together with her growing hold in the Western Hemisphere, indicates the likelihood that the British grip of the world’s oil resources and production may in the future become predominant.
Striking phases of the situation are that in the case of Great Britain the government and the oil monopolies are united, so that to all intents and purposes the control being obtained is by the British government direct; while in the United States the control is in the hands of purely commercial interests, operating without the control, assistance, or sympathy of the government. American companies may not own and operate oil lands in the British Empire, in the French possessions, or the Dutch colonies, but there are no American restrictions on foreign ownership or operation.