| Company type | Government body |
|---|---|
| Industry | Petroleum supply |
| Founded | 1917 |
| Founder | UK War cabinet |
| Defunct | 1922 |
| Fate | Merged into Board of Trade |
| Successor | Committee of Imperial Defence: Oil Board |
| Headquarters | London, England |
Area served | UK |
Key people | see text |
| Services | Coordination of Petroleum supplies |
The Petroleum Executive was a UK government body established during World War I to regulate the production, import, storage, allocation, distribution and use of petroleum and petroleum products throughout the United Kingdom.
The successful operation of the mechanised First World War was critically dependent on the availability of petroleum and petroleum products. New weapons such as aircraft and tanks; together with transport and logistics required petroleum for their operation. [1] High explosives such as TNT was made from toluol derived from petroleum. [2] But the most critical use was in shipping for the Royal Navy and merchant fleets. Three quarters of Britain's oil came from the United States. [2] By early 1917 German submarines made special efforts to attack petroleum tankers. As a result, British Admiralty officials identified that there would soon be a critical shortage of fuel. Fleet commanders were given notice to restrict the operation of their vessels. The instigation of the convoy system, with merchant shipping protected by Naval vessels, improved the supply of petroleum. [3]
There was also a domestic fuel shortage, in part a consequence of the Navy's demand. The Admiralty requisitioned so many tankers for its own needs that there were insufficient to carry petrol. Stocks of petrol fell from 36 million gallons on 1 January 1916 to 12.5 million gallons on 31 July 1916. [4]
The supply crisis prompted the government to act. On 22 May 1917 the War Cabinet instructed Walter Long, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to examine the whole question of petroleum supplies. [1]
The Petroleum Executive was established in December 1917. Long was the Minister-in-charge and he appointed Professor John Cadman as the Director. Cadman was the liaison officer between various government departments. The Executive's remit was to ensure that all military and naval services had adequate supplies of oil, to address issues of general policy, and to co-ordinate those Government departments with an interest in petroleum. [3]
Supplies were allocated and rationed with the armed forces given priority. The Petroleum Executive had taken steps to get control over as much oil as possible. [3] Domestic production was also encouraged; as one American observer noted ‘the Petroleum Executive was untiring in its effort to stimulate the production within the United Kingdom of oil suitable for use as fuel, whether from coal tar and blast furnaces or the distillation of Scotch shales, of cannel coals, or of pitch and coal tar’. [5]
The Petroleum Executive was established in wartime over a crisis in Britain's oil supplies; after the war, the government had to decide whether to have a body to co-ordinate oil policy. Long and Cadman wanted to eventually develop the Executive into a Ministry of Petroleum, but this would need departments to relinquish control over their interests in petroleum. [1] [3]
The independent Petroleum Executive was retained for a few years, but in 1922 it was retrenched into the Board of Trade as a cost cutting measure. [3]
In the interwar period the strategic production, storage and use of oil was overseen by the Committee of Imperial Defence: Oil Fuel Board (1925-1939). Topics covered include civil and military requirements for oil, oil requirements in war-time, tanker tonnage and oil stocks, oil from coal and the treatment of coal. [6] At the outbreak of World War 2 the Petroleum Board was established. [2]
Notable people and their role in the Petroleum Executive were: [7]
The headquarters of the Petroleum Executive was at 8 Northumberland Avenue London WC2 from 1917 to 1919, [9] from April 1919 it was at 12 Berkeley Street W1.
The terms gasoline, petrol, or simply gas identify and describe the petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formulated as a fuel for engines, gasoline is chemically composed of organic compounds derived from the fractional distillation of petroleum and later chemically enhanced with gasoline additives.
Operation Pluto was an operation by British engineers, oil companies and the British Armed Forces to construct submarine oil pipelines under the English Channel in support of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy during the Second World War.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company" (AIOC) when Reza Shah formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran.
Ethanol, an alcohol fuel, is an important fuel for the operation of internal combustion engines that are used in cars, trucks, and other kinds of machinery.
Underway replenishment (UNREP) or replenishment at sea (RAS) is a method of transferring fuel, munitions, and stores from one ship to another while under way. First developed in the early 20th century, it was used extensively by the United States Navy as a logistics support technique in the Pacific theatre of World War II, permitting U.S. carrier task forces to remain at sea indefinitely.
HMS Spiteful was a Spiteful-class torpedo boat destroyer built at Jarrow, England, by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company for the Royal Navy and launched in 1899. Specified to be able to steam at 30 knots, she spent her entire career serving in the seas around the British Isles.
The Ministry of Power was a United Kingdom government ministry dealing with issues concerning energy.
National Benzole was a petroleum brand used in the United Kingdom from 1919 to the 1990s. In 1957, the National Benzole Co. became wholly owned by Shell-Mex & BP but continued its separate trading identity. In the early 1960s, National Benzole was re-branded as National and continued trading as a UK retailer of petroleum products until the early 1990s, when the brand was phased out by parent company, BP.

The Bayford Group is a British company founded in 1919 in Leeds, England. For over 100 years The Bayford Group has developed and invested in a diverse portfolio of companies. Energy has always been the core of the business, from the original 1919 coal merchant business set up by 4 soldiers in Yorkshire, and named after the village where they had been demobbed, Bayford in Hertfordshire – oil distribution in the 60s, energy supply in the 90s to the multimillion pound acquisition of Gulf Gas & Power almost a century later in 2017.
Grangemouth Refinery is an oil refinery complex located on the Firth of Forth in Grangemouth, Scotland, currently operated by Petroineos.
The BPRefinery (Kent) was an oil refinery on the Isle of Grain in Kent. It was commissioned in 1953 and had a maximum processing capacity of 11 million tonnes of crude oil per year. It was decommissioned in August 1982.
Warner Norton Grubb was an American petroleum executive who served as a senior petroleum distribution officer with the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was assigned as Head of the Latin American section of the Army-Navy Petroleum Board, Tanker Control Officer for the European Theater, and finally as Executive Officer of the Allied Tanker Board. At the end of the conflict, he was promoted to Commodore and awarded the Legion of Merit.
W. L. Steed was a steam tanker built in 1917–1918 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Quincy for Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company, with intention of transporting oil and petroleum products between Mexican and Gulf ports and the Northeast of the United States. The ship was briefly requisitioned by the US Government during World War I but returned to commercial service in early 1919. The ship was named after William L. Steed, superintendent of the Mexican Petroleum Company of California.
Sir Walter St David Jenkins CB CBE was a senior British official in the Admiralty, serving as Director of Navy Contracts from 1919 to 1936. Jenkins was born on 1 March 1874 and educated at Carmarthen Grammar School and Oswestry School. He won a Meyricke exhibition to Jesus College, Oxford in 1893, obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897 before joining the Admiralty as a first-class clerk.
Sylvan Arrow was a steam tanker built in 1917–1918 by New York Shipbuilding Co. of Camden for Standard Oil Company, with intention of transporting oil and petroleum products between United States and ports in the Far East. The ship was briefly requisitioned by the US Government during World War I but returned to commercial service in early 1919.
A flame fougasse is a type of mine or improvised explosive device which uses an explosive charge to project burning liquid onto a target. The flame fougasse was developed by the Petroleum Warfare Department in Britain as an anti-tank weapon during the invasion crisis of 1940. During that period, about 50,000 flame fougasse barrels were deployed in some 7,000 batteries, mostly in southern England and a little later at 2,000 sites in Scotland. Although never used in combat in Britain, the design saw action later in Greece.
The British Royal Commission on Fuel and Engines was established in the United Kingdom on 31 July 1912, and its remit was "[t]o report on the means of supply and storage of Liquid Fuel in peace and war, and its application to warship engines, whether indirectly or by internal combustion." Established by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 to 1915, its commissioners were John Fisher, George Lambert, Thomas Boverton Redwood, Philip Watts, Henry John Oram, John Jellicoe, William Matthews, Thomas Henry Holland, Thomas Edward Thorpe, Alexander Gracie, Humphrey Owen Jones and Alfred Yarrow.
Cubadist was a steam tank ship built in 1915–16 by Fore River Shipbuilding Company of Quincy for the Cuba Distilling Company of New York. The vessel was extensively employed on East Coast to Cuba route during her career and disappeared without a trace on one of her regular trips in February 1920.
The Petroleum Board was a non-governmental organisation, established at the outbreak of World War II, to coordinate wartime supplies of petroleum and petroleum products throughout the United Kingdom. It was composed of senior executives of the major oil companies who operated an ‘oil pool’ with distribution controlled by the Board. The board was dissolved in June 1948 nearly three years after hostilities ended.

John Wilson Fell (1862–1955) was an industrialist involved in the shale oil operations at Newnes, New South Wales and the establishment of two early oil refineries, on Gore Bay at Greenwich and at Clyde, both suburbs of Sydney. He was the principal of John Fell & Company and was, for many years, the Managing Director of Commonwealth Oil Corporation, which he revived from receivership.