International Oil Consortium

an association of several petroleum monopolies (of the USA, Great Britain, France, and other countries).

The International Oil Consortium was founded in 1954 to exploit Iranian oil and to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (created in 1909), whose enterprises were nationalized by Iran in 1951. The consortium’s share in mid-1973 came to more than 90 percent of Iran’s oil production. Monopolies in the USA and Great Britain played a leading role in the consortium (40 percent of the consortium’s shares belonged to American companies and the British Petroleum Company). In mid-1973 an agreement was concluded between Iran and the consortium that obligated the consortium to hand over all its oil fields and refineries to the National Iranian Oil Company (created in 1951). The agreement also stipulated that Iranian oil would be sold over a period of 20 years to the companies of the consortium in proportion to their participation in it; under the conditions of the agreement the companies preserved the opportunity to control the production and export of the oil and other operations associated with the petroleum industry in the region in which the consortium had been active.