Calouste Gulbenkian was an Armenian-British businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development. By the end of his life he had become one of the worlds wealthiest individuals After WWI, Iraq came under British mandate. The Turkish Petroleum Company was granted exclusive oil exploration rights to Iraq in 1925. Heated and prolonged negotiations ensued regarding which companies could invest in the Turkish Petroleum Company. The discovery of a large oil reserve provided the impetus to conclude negotiations and in July 1928 an agreement was signed which determined which oil companies could invest in TPC and reserved 5% of the shares for Gulbenkian. The name of the company was changed to the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1929. Gulbenkian had the entire Iraqi oil concession, but saw advantage in divesting the vast majority of his concession so that corporations would be able to develop the whole. Gulbenkian grew wealthy on the 5%. He reputedly said, Better a small piece of a big pie, than a big piece of a small one.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 00:38:16 +0000
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