Iraq Petroleum Company, Rumaila oil field, and the invasion of kuwait. Baba Gurgur.

In 1912, this company became the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), formed with the purpose of acquiring concessions from the Ottoman Empire to explore for oil in Mesopotamia. The owners were a group of large European companies – Deutsche Bank, the Anglo Saxon Oil Company (a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell), the National Bank of Turkey (a British concern) – and Armenian businessman Calouste Gulbenkian.[8] The driving force behind its creation was Gulbenkian, and the largest single shareholder was the British government-controlled Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which by 1914 held 50% of the shares. TPC received a promise of a concession from the Ottoman government, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 put a stop to all exploration plans. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914,[1] gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran. In 1954, it was renamed again to the British Petroleum Company (BP), one of the antecedents of the modern BP public limited company. The government of Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the company's local infrastructure assets and gave the new company the name National Iranian Oil Company. The Rumaila oil field is a super-giant oil field[1] located in southern Iraq, approximately 20 mi (32 km) from the Kuwaiti border.[2] Discovered in 1953 by the Basrah Petroleum Company (BPC), an associate company of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC),[3][4][5] the field is estimated to contain 17 billion barrels, which accounts for 12% of Iraq's oil reserves estimated at 143.1 billion barrels.[6][7][8] Rumaila is said to be the largest oilfield ever discovered in Iraq[9] and is considered the third largest oil field in the world.[10] Under Abd al-Karim Qasim, the oilfield was confiscated by the Iraqi government by Public Law No. 80 of 11 December 1961.[11] Since then, this massive oil field has remained under Iraqi control. The assets and rights of IPC were nationalised by Saddam Hussein in 1972, and those of BPC in 1975.[12] The dispute between Iraq and Kuwait over alleged slant-drilling in the field was one of reasons for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Rumaila oil field was critical in the 1990 Gulf War. Iraq, after accusing Kuwait of allegedly side-drilling under Iraqi soil, launched an attack on Kuwait on 2 August 1990.[13][14] In addition, Kuwait had been producing quantities of oil, which were above treaty limits established by OPEC.[26] In fact, before the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Kuwait has drilled only 8 vertical wells in its part of the Rumaila field and the production was limited due to different technical problems. The issue for Kuwait was territorial more than oil. Kuwait never drilled deviated wells that crossed the Iraqi borders. After the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, the United Nation border demarcation committee went back to the historical data and shifted the Kuwaiti border toward the north which meant that Iraq was producing from Kuwaiti territory. During the Iraq Invasion in 2003, the regime of Saddam Hussein laid an 18 km long defensive minefield across it, which contained an estimated 100,000 mines.[27] Saddam also set fire to parts of the oil field. Baba Gurgur (Arabic: بابا كركر, Kurdish: بابە گوڕگوڕ ,Babagurgur‎[1][2]) is an oil field and gas flame near the city of Kirkuk, which was the first to be discovered in Northern Iraq in 1927. Baba Gurgur was considered the largest oil field in the world until the discovery of the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia in 1948. Baba Gurgur is 16 kiloMorton cites the local belief that the Eternal Fire was the burning fiery furnace mentioned in Chapter 3 of the Book of Daniel, into which King Nebuchadnezzar cast three Jews. Morton further mentions that according to Plutarch, this is where Alexander the Great witnessed "fire issues in a continuous stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth," and was used to illuminate the streets.[4][6][7] The site has a significant importance to Iraqi history, and religious ceremony, visited by women seeking blessing. Conversely, local shepherds used the nearby mud to protect their flocks. The burning flames are the result of an emission of natural gas through cracks in the Baba Gurgur area's rocksmetres north-west of Arrapha and is famous for its Eternal Fire , On 14 October, drilling resumed. At 3 a.m. on 15 October 1927, oil was struck and a great fountain spurted over the crown of the derrick to a height of 42 metres. The oil was overflowing into the desert, threatening the nearby inhabitants, their property, and their water supply. Kirkuk and surrounding villages were in danger of drowning in a sea of oil, if the well could not be controlled. Earthen dams, 1.5 km apart, were needed in the wadi, and a depression 24 kilometres away, formed into a temporary catchment pond. Soon, an estimated 2,000 men from the Jubur tribe along the Zab River, and the Obaid tribe on the Hawija plain, were at work. Dangers persisted, as a blue mist of gas would form at night in shallow depressions, posing the risk of poisoning the workers, of which 5 were killed. Additionally, the risk of fire was great. As the cloud of oil drifted away from the well site, work could commence on trying to close the control valve. After ten days, and 95,000 barrels of oil, the well was contained, Iraq Petroleum Company replaced the TPC in October 1928, as development commenced to produce the Kirkuk Field. Supporting infrastructure included two pipelines to carry the oil to the Mediterranean coast, 100 wells, 12 pumping stations, oil terminals for ships, telegraph and telephone lines, air transport, rail transport, workshops and offices.[4] In 2018, it was alleged that oil from Kurdish controlled Baba Gurgur went to the Turkish town of Ceyhan, and from there was secretly shipped to Israel.