890E.6363/7–3046: Telegram
The Minister to Syria and Lebanon (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:14 p.m.]
383. Aramco representative Lenahan arrived Beirut July 26 to negotiate pipeline conventions with Lebanon and Syria. I have presented him to Foreign Ministers Beirut and Damascus and arranged that technical discussions with appropriate Ministers begin this week.
He has full powers of attorney and proposes endeavor conclude agreement with each country generally along lines of his Trans-Jordan draft, with articles VI and VII of IPC Syrian-Lebanon conventions added.
For transit rights and security services in Syria he is prepared to pay up to pounds 50,000 per annum which is figure informally agreed upon with King Abdullah. For terminus and port facilities he will suggest to each country payment at same rate now paid by IPC. He understands such rate to be two pence per ton loaded aboard tankers Tripoli. This would involve annual payment pounds 150,000 were whole of expected on [sic] 5,000,000 tons annual throughput tons loaded at one port.
I gather from Lenahan that, while trend of Aramco thinking in US tends to favor establishing terminus at Port Fouad (with possible bifurcation to Palestine or Levant Port) he himself is keenly appreciative of advantages offered by port in Lebanon. In addition to those discussed during my last visit to Dept is presumption that Lebanon is least likely of Arab states to manifest xenophobic tendencies in treatment of foreign capital investment.
Copies to Arab capitals.
[A pipeline convention was entered into at Amman by the Government of Transjordan and the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line Company on August 8, 1946. Article IV provided for a payment of 60,000 Palestinian pounds as transit fee for each year that oil passed through the Company’s pipeline across Transjordan. A copy of the convention was transmitted to the Department in despatch 1306, August 20, from Beirut (890E.6363/8–2046).
On August 10 the Company signed a pipeline convention at Beirut with the Government of Lebanon. Article IV called for payment of 1.5/1000 of one pound sterling per ton of oil passing across Lebanese [Page 30] territory through the Company pipeline, with a minimum annual payment of 20,000 pounds sterling. A copy of the convention was transmitted to the Department in despatch 1310, August 22, from Beirut (890E.6363/8–2246). In a separate letter of August 10 to Saadi Mounla, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr. Lenahan made formal notification that should the Company select a port on the Lebanese coast for the terminus of its pipeline, it would conclude an agreement with the Lebanese Government whereby it would pay two pence on every ton of oil exported in lieu of all dues, taxes, and charges, except lighthouse dues (890B.6363/11–1446).
Mr. Lenahan also attempted to negotiate a pipeline agreement with the Government of Syria. He informed officers of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs on November 21 that these negotiations had broken down completely (memorandum of conversation by Richard H. Sanger, 891.6363/11–2146).]