ABSTRACT
Up to 1886 the consumers of petroleum in India were completely dependent on American imports, with very few exceptions. Since the Suez Canal was closed to the oil-carrying ships in those days for fear of disaster, the transport of oil from Baku to India was not an easy proposition. The two most important industries were the jute and cotton industries which then hardly used any extensive mechanical process and used to sell intermediate products to the manufacturers of Britain and the USA Oil was discovered in substantial amounts in the Far East towards the beginning of the 1890s. The leading producing company of Burma, the Burmah Oil Company, a British-owned firm, was formed as far back as 1871, but it was not until the conquest of this country by the British, in 1886, that the organisation could secure sufficient concessions, and was organised on a joint stock basis.
