Oil was found at Masjed Soleyman in southwestern Iran on May 26, 1908, and three years later was piped down to a newly built refinery at Abadan on the Iranian side of the Shatt al- rab, not many miles below Basra.1 Its global importance was immediately recognized, not just by the Admiralty in London, looking for new sources of supply for its oil-fired battleships, but in other European capitals as well—leading to a brief British-German-Turkish skirmish for control of the pipeline at the start of World War I. Read More…