To many Iranians March 20 is the reminder of an event that changed the course of history for their country; it was in such a day back in 1951 when Iran’s then parliament voted unanimously in favor of the nationalization of oil in Iran.
The idea was introduced in a bill to the parliament by Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq with the support of his nationalist party and religious groups led by Ayatollah Kashani.
In 1909, shortly after the commercial quantities of oil were found, Burmah Oil thought that a new corporate structure needed to be created in order to work the concession.
This led to the creation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and Burmah Oil made it a publicly traded company, by selling shares off to the public in 1909.
At this time Burmah Oil maintained control and the majority of the ordinary shares.
For William Knox D'Arcy, he was compensated for his exploration costs and became a director of the new company, but as his role quickly faded out, D'Arcy began a subsidiary of the Anglo-Iranian company to look for further oil exploration sites.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran.
It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran.
In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and in 1954 it became the British Petroleum Company (BP), one of the antecedents of the modern BP public limited company.
In September 1941, the laborers of Iran’s South Oil company grouped in Khuzestan Oil Workers Syndicate to struggle against Britain’s colonial role in Iran’s oil industry.
Later in March 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings, and shortly thereafter the Iranian public elected a champion of nationalization, Mohammad Mossadegh, Prime Minister.
The nationalization of oil industry is celebrated ever since in Iran every year.
