Oil Concessions

Oil concession agreements in the colonial order bear a hidden power structure that acts as a bargaining tool for concessionaires against the host countries. In these colonial power relations, oil companies had the knowledge of oil technology, experienced oil technicians, and the economic capacity to invest in all processes of oil business. The host countries in the Persian Gulf, on the contrary, had neither technology nor economic power to construct their oil sector. Colonial order provider, on the other hand, had completed its concession diplomacy initiatives, putting pressure on both oil countries and oil companies with half-threats and half-promises. The Gulf oil countries were therefore powerless and had no choice of rejecting the concession terms offered by oil companies. The political order and military presence of the British Empire on the one hand, and the oil technology and financial capacity of the oil companies on the other, determined the colonization fate of Persian Gulf oil. In the post-colonial oil order, colonial oil concessions were replaced by oil contracts. In the postcolonial oil order, two issues come to the fore: supplying sufficient amounts of oil at affordable prices and governing oil market.