[1] In 1912 the company acquired its first ocean going ship, the SS Ferrara, a conventional freighter that carried oil products in metal cases.

[3] The BTC placed orders with two Tyneside based shipbuilders, Armstrong Whitworth and Swan Hunter, for a total of seven steam-powered oil tankers.

This acknowledged the fact that the British government had invested heavily in the fledgling company to ensure a supply of fuel oil for the Royal Navy.

In 1917 APOC made a successful offer to the British government for the assets of the former German-owned Benzin und Petroleum BP AG seized on the outbreak of war.

This included the associate Petroleum Steamship Company (PSSC) whose 13 oil tankers passed into BTC ownership.

The PSSC, now a subsidiary of BTC, took over ownership of the locally manned and managed fleet of small craft operating at Abadan.

She was the BTC's first diesel engined oil tanker, and was at that time the most powerful single-screw motor ship in the world.

In 1932, APOC reached an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell to combine their UK domestic marketing and distribution networks.

[1] With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the British government chartered BTC's whole fleet of 93 vessels to transport fuel for its armed forces.

These new ships increased the tonnage of oil transported from the Abadan refinery, but they remained within the limits imposed by the requirement to sail through the shallow waters of the Suez Canal.

At this time the company decided that the old principle of owning 90% of its required tonnage was too onerous and that chartered vessels should be employed to make up the average 50% annual shortfall.

The crisis lead to a major emergency logistics operation being undertaken to reroute and repurpose the tanker fleet to cope with the loss of the refining capacity at Abadan.

In addition the Petroleum Steamship Company's fleet of barges, tugs, lighters and ancillary craft was hastily evacuated to Basra and Kuwait.