ABSTRACT
The first recorded expression of interest in the oil possibilities of Kuwait was in November 1911. Shaikh Mubarak al Subah, then in the fifteenth year of his reign, had secured the independence of Kuwait twelve years previously from the designs of the Turkish Empire by signing an Agreement with Britain in 1899. The Agreement, signed on behalf of the British Government by its Political Resident in the Gulf (1), included an undertaking that the Shaikh, his heirs and successors would not 'cede, sell, lease, mortgage or give for occupation or for any other purpose any portion of his territory to the Government or subjects of any other power' without the previous consent of the British Government. This proviso was destined many years later to cause complications in the negotiations for Kuwait's oil concession from 1928 onwards.
