Picture: Abadan oil plant

Abadan became the largest oil plant in the world

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed in 1909 to take over and finance an oil-field concession granted in 1901 by the Iranian government to an English/Australian investor, William Knox D'Arcy. The first successful oil wells were drilled at Masjed Soleyman, and crude oil was piped to a refinery built at Abadan, from which the first cargo of oil was exported in March 1912.
Other Iranian fields and refineries were built, and by 1938 Abadan had the largest single refinery in the world.