The Abadan Crisis ( ''Bohrân Nafti Irân'', "Iran Oil Crisis") occurred from 1951 to 1954, after
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
nationalise
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
d the Iranian assets of the
BP controlled
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and expelled Western companies from oil refineries in the city of
Abadan
Abadan ( fa, آبادان ''Ābādān'', ) is a city and capital of Abadan County, Khuzestan Province, which is located in the southwest of Iran. It lies on Abadan Island ( long, 3–19 km or 2–12 miles wide). The island is bounded ...
(see
Abadan Refinery
The Abadan refinery ( fa, پالایشگاه آبادان ''Pālāyeshgāh-e Ābādān'') is an oil refinery located in Abadan near the coast of the Persian Gulf.
History
Built by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later BP) on the basis of a lease o ...
).
Prelude
The AIOC was the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's "single largest overseas asset" and a "source of national pride" in the British post-war era of
Clement Attlee, and
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–19 ...
. Even as late as the "1940s and early 1950s some high British officials still believed that Persian petroleum was actually and rightly British petroleum because it had been discovered by the British, developed by British capital, and exploited through British skill and British ingenuity."
In stark contrast, Iranian Premier
Mohammad Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
believed the 1933 concession granted to the AIOC by Iran was "immoral as well as illegal". Mosaddeq "challenged every aspect of the British commercial presence in Iran". The British feared that if Mosaddeq's policies prevailed, "nationalists throughout the world could abrogate British concessions with impunity."
Nationalization
The AIOC was nationalized by the Iranian Parliament in March 1951. In Iran this was enormously popular and seen as a long overdue staunching of the bleeding of its national wealth which could now be harnessed to fighting poverty in Iran. In Britain, the nationalisation was widely seen as an intolerable breach of contract or theft. British emissaries in the United States after the nationalisation, argued that allowing Iran to nationalise the oil company "would be widely regarded as a victory for the Russians" and would also "cause a loss of one hundred million pounds per annum in the United Kingdom's balance of payments, thus seriously affecting our rearmament program and our cost of living."
British warships blockaded Abadan. On 22 August, the British cabinet imposed a series of
economic sanctions
Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they ma ...
on Iran. It prohibited exports of key British commodities, including sugar and steel, directed the withdrawal of all British personnel from Iranian oil fields and all but a hard core of about 300 administrators from Abadan and blocked Iran's access to its hard currency accounts in British banks.
After the withdrawal of the British workers in the fall of 1951, the Iranians felt confident that they could easily hire non-British technicians to run the industry and then quickly train their own nationals to replace them. This did not prove to be the case; the United States, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and West Germany all refused to make their technicians available to the nationalized Iranian industry. Only Italy agreed, demonstrating that most industrialized countries supported Britain over Iran in the nationalization dispute."
In July 1952, the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
intercepted the Italian tanker ''Rose Mary'' and forced it into the British protectorate of
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
on the grounds that the ship's petroleum was stolen property. News that the Royal Navy was intercepting tankers carrying Iranian oil scared off other tankers and effectively shut down oil exports from Iran.
[Kinzer, ''All the Shah's Men'', (2003), p.138]
Supporters of the nationalization, including the
National Poet
A national poet or national bard is a poet held by tradition and popular acclaim to represent the identity, beliefs and principles of a particular national culture. The national poet as culture hero is a long-standing symbo ...
of Iran
Adib Boroumand, sent out
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
in the form of poetry in support of Mossadegh's movement. Poems were read out on radio broadcasts, passed out to people on paper pamphlets, and published in newspapers.
Coup d'état
The democratically elected government of Iran was overthrown on 19 August 1953, following
a coup d'état orchestrated by the United Kingdom and the United States, and
Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
was ousted from power. During the
coup, codenamed
Operation Ajax
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
, the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
and
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
restored
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. In August 1954, the AIOC was set under the control of an international
consortium
A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...
. Initially, ownership shares in the consortium proposed to be divided along the following lines: 40% to be divided equally (8% each) among the five major American companies;
British Petroleum to have a 40% share;
Royal Dutch/Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
to have 14%; and
CFP, a French Company, to receive 6%. Iran now received 25% of the profits compared to 20% of the original treaty with the AIOC.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
and other oil-exploiting countries of the region received up to 50% of the profits in cooperation with American oil companies at the same time.
It was only in 1980, after the US and British backed Shah regime was ousted through a
people's uprising in 1979, that the oil company was
nationalized
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...
into what is today known as the
NIOC
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC; fa, شرکت ملّی نفت ایران, Sherkat-e Melli-ye Naft-e Īrān) is a government-owned national oil and natural gas producer and distributor under the direction of the Ministry of Petroleum of I ...
(
National Iranian Oil Company
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC; fa, شرکت ملّی نفت ایران, Sherkat-e Melli-ye Naft-e Īrān) is a government-owned national oil and natural gas producer and distributor under the direction of the Ministry of Petroleum of ...
).
See also
*
International crisis
The term international crisis is a widespread term without a single common definition. To some, it involves "a sequence of interactions between the governments of two or more sovereign states in severe conflict, short of actual war, but involving ...
*
National Front of Iran
The National Front of Iran ( fa, جبهه ملی ایران, Jebhe-ye Melli-ye Irân) is an opposition political organization in Iran, founded by Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1949. It is the oldest and arguably the largest pro-democracy group operat ...
*
Abadan Crisis timeline
*
Occupation of Bushehr
Notes
{{Iran-United Kingdom relations
1950s in Iran
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
Iran–United Kingdom relations
Abadan, Iran