Everything was developing very well, and there was nothing wrong with the British ZF at all, but there was no smooth sailing in the world.

In 1912, due to insufficient funds, the British-BP oil company was unable to establish its own sales network, so it had to sell Persian oil to British-Dutch Shell at a low price to make a living. However, the company could go bankrupt at any time due to insufficient income.

At this time, they remembered that when the company was established three years ago, the plan describing the company's prospects mentioned the oil demand of the British Navy, and President Greenway believed that this was the only life-saving straw.

As early as 1898, the Royal Navy began to test petroleum fuels. In 1902, the Petroleum Fuel Committee, led by Admiral Sir John Fisher, was established to study the use of fuel in ships and how to make the oil supply completely controlled by the United Kingdom.

Although the navy's 56 newly built destroyers and 74 submarines were fuel-powered, the top leaders have never made up their minds to build the navy, which is the top priority in the imperial military, on oil.

It was not until 1911 that Churchill was appointed Minister of the Navy. At the beginning of his tenure, he met with the chairman of Yingbo Petroleum Company to learn about the situation.

At that time, the international oil industry was controlled by three major companies, Standard Oil of the United States, Royal British and Dutch Shell, whose British companies accounted for 40%, and a German company. Churchill believed that although the British-Boer Oil Company was not big, it was completely British-funded. As long as Persia's oil resources were abundant enough, it should be purchased from the British-Boer Company.

In 1913, the 200,000 barrel order from the Admiralty Department did not satisfy Greenway. He believed that if the company could not get greater support from ZF, survival would be a problem, let alone development?

Greenway could have guessed Churchill’s thoughts. He released the news and said that Shell was interested in acquiring Yingbo Company.

Sure enough, the Admiral responded positively and quickly sent an investigation team led by an admiral and an oil expert to conduct an investigation to Persia. Three weeks later, the investigation team reported that the mining and refining of Ying-Po Company were very satisfactory.

Then the Ministry of the Navy and Yingbo Company signed two contracts, one of which was a contract for state-owned equity and corporate governance. The contract stipulated that the government invested 2 million pounds in Yingbo Company and occupied a majority (51%), and ZF sent two directors;

One is a ZF procurement contract, and the Navy purchases 40 million barrels of fuel in 20 years.

The contract must be passed by a majority vote of the lower house of parliament before it can take effect. Although the media was full of doubts about this contract at the time, as Churchill and the Foreign Minister both expressed their support, the lower house of the UK parliament passed the "British-Boberse Oil Company Financing Act" by 191 to 67.

Of course, although ZF holds Yingbo Petroleum Company, it does not interfere with the company's commercial operations, and its veto power at the board level is limited to foreign affairs. These matters are written in the first contract and have been fulfilled.

However, more than 60 years later, something happened in 1974, vividly demonstrating this ZF-enterprise relationship.

In October 1973, the Egyptian General Sadat launched the Yom Kippur War against Israel, and the Arab countries immediately used "oil weapons", causing a shortage of oil supply around the world.

The UK happened to have a strike between coal miners, lack of coal and oil, and the serious energy problem made the Prime Minister Edward Heath feel very worried!

He met with BP chairman Derek and Shell's McFatz and asked them not to cut the supply of BP. Shell refused, for the simple reason, 60% of the company's shares belonged to the Dutch.

This is also the issue of control over oil that Churchill had worried about 60 years ago. BP is controlled by ZF, but Derek's answer also left Heath helpless.

Derek said, "Are you a shareholder or ZF asking me this way? If you are a shareholder, you should know that many of our overseas subsidiaries are at risk of being nationalized by their country. If you are on ZF's standpoint, please issue us a written order and make clear requirements, and I will treat it as a force majeure factor."

Heath was angry at this and said angrily, "You know I won't do this!"

Later, because Heath could not solve the energy problem, he was forced to step down. After retirement, he was keen on conducting symphony bands. There were probably no such problems as ZF and enterprise or trade unions between conductors and performers.

However, this incident caused a crack between BP Oil and the British ZF, which has been around for a long time since then.

The British dug out their first pot of gold in Persia. Since they did not invade and colonize this country, they have maintained close diplomatic and commercial exchanges with the Shiite Kaiga Dynasty. The strength of the two countries is very different, but they still have to pay a considerable price to the Persian king for mining oil.

In order to obtain greater commercial benefits, in 1925, Britain secretly supported Lizan Khan Pahlavi, commander of the Cossack Brigade of the Persian Guards, to launch a military change, ended the rule of the Kaiga dynasty, and began the Pahlavi dynasty.

King Lizan Khan did not accept the mercy of the British as expected by the British. On the one hand, he strengthened centralization internally and weakened the influence of Shiite religious figures in the judiciary and parliament, and on the other hand, he showed kindness to Germany, trying to get rid of Britain and avoid being treated as a puppet. The interests of BP oil companies were affected instead.

In 1929, due to the financial collapse of Wall Street, the Great Depression worldwide, the price of oil per barrel in the US market fell to 65 cents in 1931, while the price in 1926 before the depression was $1.88.

For this reason, BP lay off 15,000 employees in Persia, and its annual expenditure was cut from 8.2 million pounds to 2.7 million pounds. Not only did the revenue decrease due to the price, but the market share was also hit by the dumping of polar bear oil.

As a last resort, in 1932, BP and Shell joined forces to establish a unified sales company in the British market, Shell-Mex and BP, to fight against Soviet oil and old rival Standard Oil.

In June 1932, BP company called Persian ZF and notified that the mining area rental fee in the previous year was reduced to 300,000 pounds, a decrease of 1 million pounds from 1930. King Lizhan Khan burned his call and announced the cancellation of the contract signed by the previous dynasty with Darcy.

BP's then chairman, Cadman, did not believe that Persia could easily tear the contract. He told the Persian ambassador to the UK, "It's like playing chess between the two sides. The first player ate all the pieces on the board and asked us to take the next move. We showed that this was not the way to play chess, and the other party was surprised."
Chapter completed!