Mecantile States and the World Oil Cartel, p. 194: "In their new harmony [following selective joint production and marketing agreements in 1928] Royal Dutch-Shell, Anglo Persian [British Petroleum], and Burmah interests became equally peevish about Soviet oil exports to Asia via the Suez Canal. In France, Soviet Oil was sold through national companies, but as elsewhere 1928 marked a turning point. Italy had earlier recognized the Albanian government of Ahmed Zaku [aka Ahmed Zogou, crowned as "Zog the 1st"] who received loans and financial support from Great Britain; he granted concessions in Albania to Anglo-Persian, which agreed to sell 40 to 50 percent of the oil pumped there to Italy. On 30 and 31 July 1928, as the working agreement for Iraq was signed, the Anglo Persian and Italian companies, including the state-owned Agip and two other Italian independent companies, met in Paris and, the next day, in Lausanne to sign agreements that phased Soviet oil out of the Italian market. Anglo-Persian became the principal supplier." A footnote adds: "Fear of turning Italy back to Soviet oil may have prevented League of Nations oil sanctions from being imposed on Italy when it invaded Ethiopia." The book does not cover Italy's invasion of Albania but it does look to me to have been an oil-driven event. Bracketed material was added by me for the purposes of this post. The general theme developed here is that part of the purpose of the famous 1928 internatinal oil agreements was to reduce Soviet export presence in world markets. -gn. -- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York
