Who was the founder of the modern oil industry in the Middle East?

William Knox D’Arcy was the founder of the modern oil industry in the Middle East.

In 1901, D’Arcy secured a sweeping concession from Persia’s Qajar government to explore for and produce oil across most of the country. He financed the risky search despite years of poor results and never personally visited Persia. Drilling eventually struck oil at Masjed Soleyman on 26 May 1908, a discovery that transformed the region’s economic and strategic importance.

D’Arcy’s concession became the foundation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, established in 1909. The company later became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and ultimately formed part of BP. A pipeline to the Abadan refinery helped turn the discovery into a commercial industry and made Persian oil important to the British Empire, including the Royal Navy.

The wording can cause confusion because figures such as Calouste Gulbenkian, Winston Churchill, and John D. Rockefeller also shaped Middle Eastern petroleum history. D’Arcy, however, is the pioneering concession-holder and principal founder associated with the industry’s beginnings in Persia, the region’s first major modern oil-producing state.