Draft:Fatollah Naficy

Fatollah Naficy, widely recognised as one of the founders of the oil industry of Iran, was born in Tehran, Iran, on the 21st of December 1908.

/media/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Engineer_Fatollah_Naficy%2C_1908-2022.jpg

Fatollah's father was Ali Akbar Naficy (formally known as Nazem ol ateba), a distinguished physician and physician to the court of the Iranian Qajar king, Mozaffaredin/Nasserdin Shah. Nazem ol ateba was a scholar and author of several pioneering medical procedural and medical reference books. He also compiled and authored the first comprehensive annotated Farsi Encyclopaedia/Dictionary named Farhang Naficy. Fatollah's mother, was Jalileh Khajehnouri (formally known as Jamaldoleh), who was a granddaughter of Sadreazam Nouri, an Iranian Chancellor during the reign of the Qajar king Nasserdin Shah.

Fatollah Naficy attended primary and secondary schools in Tehran and upon graduation, won a scholarship to study oil engineering and refining at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom. He won first place in the national placement examinations, and together with a fellow candidates, became one of the first Iranians to formally study Oil Engineering and Refinery at the university level.

After graduation in 1931 with a BSc degree, he reccieved relevant technical training in the oil fields of Romania and at the LLandarcy refinery in Wales. He returned to Iran in 1932 to complete his national military service. Fatollah graduated from the Military College as a Second Lieutenant in the Artillery Corps. In 1933 he joined the Anglo Persian Oil Company as Area Engineer in the Iranian oilfield called Masjid e Soleiman. He later held positions as Control Engineer and Production Engineer in other Anglo-Persian-operated oil fields in Iran.

In 1938, disappointed with ‘Anglo-Persian’ for their treatment of their Iranian personnel, he left the company and joined the Iranian Ministry of Finance. He held several increasingly-senior positions in that Ministry as well as in the Ministry of Industry and Mines, and in 1942, was appointed Director of the Petroleum and Mining Revenues Department at the Ministry of Finance.

The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran during WWII, and the subsequent meddling of the occupying powers in Iranian affairs resulted in his decision to leave public service. He then spent five years in the private sector of Iran as the Managing Director of several contracting and general trading companies, before rejoining the public sector in 1947. Between 1947 and 1949, he served as a member of the Supreme Planning Board, a body set up by the government of Iran to draft the nation’s first Development Plan. He was appointed leader of the group of experts tasked with the preparation of the Industrial, Mining and Petroleum Section of the first Iranian Seven Year Development Plan.

Upon the formation of the Plan Organization of Iran (Sazemaan Barnameh), he was appointed Deputy Managing Director for Technical Affairs, supervising and coordinating the organization’s activities in the fields of industry, mining, petroleum, communications and construction, a position he held from he held in from 1949 to 1951.

In 1951, Fatollah was appointed Chairman and Managing Director of Iran Oil Company, Iran’s first national oil company created to explore for oil in areas of Iran not covered by concessions granted to the international oil companies. Between 1953 and 1954, he was Secretary to the Iranian delegation that negotiated the 1953 agreement with a consortium of international oil companies.

Soon after the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry in 1951, Fatollah Naficy became a member of the board and deputy managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). There he served as the Deputy Managing Director and Chief Coordinator, as the Director responsible for NIOC’s exploration and production activities during 1954 to 1969, and additionally mannaged Refining, Distribution and Sales between 1962 and 1969. Over and above those day-to-day activities, he negotiated several of NIOC’s major joint structure agreements with international oil companies, including those with Italy’s AGIP (ENI), Standard Oil of Indiana, Atlantic Richfield, the Tidewater Group, Phillips Petroleum, the Indian Oil and Gas Commission and France’s Elf (Erap).

Fatollah Naficy played a prominent role in the establishment of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). He represented Iran in the first four OPEC Conferences and together with Dr Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo of Venezuela and Mr Abdullah Taraki of Saudi Arabia drafted OPEC’s Statutes.

Eventually, Fatollah retired from NIOC and public service in 1969, and at the invitation of Dr Alinaghi Alikhani, the Chancellor of Tehran University, taught Petroleum Economics at the Graduate School of Economics, the Faculty of Economics.

For almost twenty years after his retirement from NIOC, he remained involved with the international oil industry as a Consultant and Advisor to a number of major international oil companies. As Chairman of the Iranian National Committee, he represented Iran in numerous international oil conferences such as the World Petroleum Congress and was elected Vice President of the Congress twice during 1963-1967 and again during the 1975-1979 period.

Fatollah left Iran at the outset of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and settled in France. He was fluent in English and French, besides his native Farsi.

Engineer Fatollah Naficy passed away on January 16, 2002 in Los Angeles, California. He was married to the late Pourandokht Pourdavoud Naficy, the only daughter of the renowned scholar of Ancient Iran, Professor Ebrahim Pourdavoud. Fatollah Naficy was survived by four children, Hormoz, Anahita, Arash and Parvin; five grandchildren and a great grandchild.

References

"Engineer Fatollah Naficy, the father of Iraninan Oil Industry passed away", Rahavard, A Persian Journal of Iranian Studies, Published quarterly in Los Angeles by Hassan Shahbaz, Summer 2002, Volume 60, Page 348.

Gholam Reza Afkhami, 2009, "The Life and Times of The Shah" , University of California Press, pp-163, 164, 267, 348, 641n13, published January 12, 2009.

Focus - The British Iranian Chamber of Commerce, Issue No.15. http://www.bicc.org.uk › focus ›