Qatar Philatelic History: Qatar and the Red Line Agreement

At times it pays off to have a little curiosity and not to restrict oneself to very specific searches, as we shall see in the below case.

The cover displayed in the slide below appear to have absolutely no connection to Qatar (my main philatelic interest), but not all is as it appears. For the Irak Petroleum Company (as written on the cover) was the main petroleum company for the Middle East and hence its branched expanded all over.

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The Iraq Petroleum Company was a breakaway company of the Turkish Petroleum Company, who, due to the Ottoman Empire controlled vast amounts of territory in the Middle East. However, subsequent to World War I, this power began to crumble, leading to European Powers gaining some traction in the Middle East Oil Exploration.

American Companies, were excluded from the Turkish Petroleum Company. However, even so, the companies that had invested in the Turkish Petroleum Company were fearful of the American Companies. To protect their claims and ensure financial stability for themselves a proposed mutual agreement was made. the concept was simple, any oil find and exploration in the region, would be equally agreed to and shared by all parties. So if one company found an oil well, it need agreement of all other to explore it, and would have to share the proceedings. This ensured that all parties only invested in financial profitable oil wells and that all profited equally thereby ensuring a 'financial war chest' against others.

This agreement was proposed by a known oil developer and financier by the name of Calouste Gulbenkian. In remarking the region were the agreement would be enforced, he marked it with a red pen, with the aim of marking all the Ottoman Empire, see slide below.

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Although the concept of the Red Line Agreement was interesting and appealing it had one major flaw. There was nothing in it, that prevented other companies in seeking and obtaining exploration rights within the debarked territories.

As such the American companies, soon began exploiting this loophole. By 1946, the capacity of the findings was too much even for the American Companies, and they began seeking assistance from the companies that were tied down by the Red Agreement.

The American Government, after World War II, began to claim some of its dues from the European nations in this regard, and so by 1948 the Red Line Agreement land had been reduced (see slide below).

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On the slide below we see the logic of the cover on the first slide having been sent to Tripoli in Lebanon, was re-addressed to Basrah, the location of the next big oil finding.

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As we have seen, the Turkish Petroleum Company, became the Iraq Petroleum Company and, eventually the Qatar Petroleum Development Company grew from this.

We can track all this natural movement in the exploration for oil by looking at the movements of the gentlemen to whom the previous and the next covers had been sent to. A Mr. W. D. Tonkinson Esq, B.Sc.

The three covers show that he began in Tripoli - Lebanon, then moved to Basrah - Iraq and finally to Dukhan - Qatar.

It is fortunate that he was also a philatelist (we shall see further proof of this later), that he also sent covers to satisfy his collection. As such, the first cover below (middle one) is sent to himself from Doha, nearly at the time of the opening of the Doha Post Office. The second cover, he sent to his wife (or mother), most probably using the Postal Services of the Qatar Petroleum Company, which is know to have sent its mail by airplane to Bahrain, as such the cover has Bahrain Stamps and Date Cancel, but a return address in Dukhan - Qatar.

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Below, I show proof that Mr. W. D. Tonkinson was a philatelist, as on his return to England, he joined a philatelic club.

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So, who was Mr. Tonkinson ?

Unfortunately, my research has turned a blank. But not all in vain, as it has lead me to some new findings. It turns out that there were others with very similar names. If you return to the very first slide, you will notice, that when the cover was being re-directed, the name became misspelled, From Tonkinson to Tomkinson. (the first N became a M).

I know know this was an error, as the other two covers the name remained spelled with a N.

Nevertheless, this error did result in an interesting finding as we shall see. There was a gentleman by the name of Tomkinson in Doha - Qatar, who, as the cover below seems to have some connection to oil exploration, was the letter below with a spelling mistake.

Unlikely, when it appears in two different letters.