used by Burmah Oil Company The company was founded in
Glasgow in 1886 by
David Sime Cargill, an East India merchant, to succeed his Rangoon Oil Company Ltd, also of Glasgow, to further expand and develop oil fields in the
Indian subcontinent. On his death in 1904, the ownership and chairmanship passed to his son
John Cargill. In the 1900s,
the Admiralty was planning a changeover from coal to fuel oil for powering the engines of its warships. In 1905, Burmah signed a contract with the Admiralty to supply naval fuel oil from Rangoon. In 1938, Burmah Oil was the subject of a major nationalist protest and
general strike in
British Burma, known as the
1300 Revolution. Burmah Oil ultimately conceded a few terms, but the strike ended mostly out of fatigue. For about a century, the company played a major role in the oil industry, and in the discovery of oil in the Middle East through its significant influence over British Petroleum. It marketed itself under the
BOC brand in
Burma,
Bangladesh (formerly
East Pakistan) and
Assam (in India), and through a joint venture Burmah-Shell with
Shell in the rest of India. Until 1901, when the
Standard Oil Company started operations in
Burma, Burmah Oil enjoyed a monopoly in the region. The company operated in Burma until 1963, when
Ne Win nationalized all industries in the country. The company was involved in a landmark legal case in 1964,
Burmah Oil Co. v Lord Advocate, concerning compensation for the destruction of oil fields in Burma by British forces in 1942 to avoid them falling into the hands of the invading Japanese army, winning a 3–2 decision in the
Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, but the effect of this was specifically reversed by the
War Damage Act 1965. In 1963, the company left Burma and undertook new exploration in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australasia, the Americas, Canada and the North Sea until 1986. In 1966, Burmah acquired
Castrol, renaming it Burmah-Castrol. The
Bank of England came to the rescue of Burmah Oil after the company made large losses on its tanker fleets in 1974. The core of the rescue operation was the provision of a year's grace so that the company could become smaller and more viable. In 2000, Burmah was acquired by
BP Amoco. ==References==