11.1 Frustrations

Soon after the Ra's Sadr well was abandoned as a dry hole in April 1951 and while operations were getting under way to drill a well at Jebel Ali in Dubai territory, Sheikh Shakhbut was asking PD(TC) about their future intentions in his land. The company personnel, Henderson and Codrai, who called on the Sheikh from time to time, were again and again receiving increasingly strongly worded verbal protests about the lack of activity on the part of the company in his territory. They were able to give him only the vaguest plans about PD(TC)'s future operations and were unable to assure him that work would be resumed in his land in the near future.

Sheikh Shakhbut was told, once again, that PD(TC) was unable to enter the western half of his territory. They said that the imposition of the ban by HMG was, in part, due to his lack of interest in the area. Because of this the Saudis were able to have a large part of his land included in the area where oil related activity was now suspended. It appears that this was a criticism commonly made at that time about Sheikh Shakhbut and sometimes directly to him. He had his reply ready and that was that the Company had drilled only one well. He also said, on a number of occasions, that if PD(TC) could not start working again in the remaining area, the eastern half of Abu Dhabi territory, they should give up the concession.

11.2 Another Well in Abu Dhabi Territory

Lermitte knew very well, and reported to London, that Sheikh Shakhbut would be extremely annoyed if PD (TC) did not arrange to drill again very soon in his territory. Heseldin1 suggested that a well should be drilled in territory claimed by Saudi Arabia, and in the event that Abu Dhabi lost the territory, the company would at least have gained very valuable information. The geology of the underground rock formations in the area between Dukhan in Qatar and Ra's Sadr needed to be investigated as at that time it was only possible to extrapolate the known information about the rocks over the long distance between Qatar and Abu Dhabi territory. The PD(TC) plan was to bring a seismic party in during April 1952 to work through that western area for a couple of months.