Oil Industry Documents To Become World Memory

The Petroleum Museums and Documents Center hosted a meeting in which the National Committee Of World Memory representatives, affiliated to the National Commission for UNESCO, had been invited to participate to talk about the world registration of oil industry valuable documents.

The National Committee Of World Memory, headquartered in the National Library and Archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, holds the regular monthly meeting with documents experts at its headquarters in Tehran. But this time, the Petroleum Museums and Documents Center decided to invite the committee members to hold a meeting together in order to be acquainted with the petroleum ministry activities regarding registration and preserving old oil industry documents and objects and at the same time to lay the groundwork for further cooperation between the two sides.  

During the meeting, Habibollah Bitaraf, deputy minister of petroleum for engineering, research and technology; Akbar Nematollahi, director of the Petroleum Museums and Documents Center; and Farhad Nazari, managing director of the registration bureau at the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts And Tourism Organization of Iran made remarks on the petroleum ministry’s plans and objectives with regard to preserving oil industry documents, historical oil industry objects and buildings and preserving them as national heritage.

Deputy Minister of petroleum for engineering in his remarks said that Iran as an old civilization has many works which are deserved to be registered as national heritage and thanked the National Committee Of World Memory which is in charge of identification, preservation and introducing these works to the world.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Bitaraf stressed on the necessity of the national cooperation for registering the historical works which are the symbol of Iranian identity.

According to him, preserving Iran’s oil history is very important and that is why the Iranian minister of petroleum issued an order for creating petroleum museums with the aim of preserving oil industry heritage which has played a great role in development of the country and at the same time has been the origin of many developments across the national, regional and global scenes.

“We are very interested in boosting cooperation between Iran’s oil industry and the national committee of world memory as a way to register and preserve Iran’s oil industry heritage”, he noted.

He also appreciated the minister of petroleum, Bijan Zanganeh, for paying serious attention to the subject and said: all of us owe to Mr. Zanganeh who stressed on the necessity of identification, collecting, documentation and preserving oil industry heritage by ordering formation of the Petroleum Museums and Documents Center and tasked Mr. Nematollhi to fulfill the task since three years ago.

The second speaker, Farhad Nazari, the managing director of registration bureau at the cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism organization of Iran and the scientific secretary of the national committee of world memory delivered speech focused on the reasons behind the formation of the national committee of world memory, noting the committee founded in 1992 at UNESCO and aims to facilitate access to the mankind’s documented heritage, the most important of them, among other objectives, include protecting manuscript books, documents, maps, as well as audio-visual works as films and photos.

Referring to the importance of audio-visual products, he pointed out to 27 October which has been named by UNESCO as the day of audio-visual heritage across the world.

“By drafting this program and formation of the national committee of world memory, UNESCO has tried to help the countries to identify, register and protect their heritage at the national, regional and global levels and Iran is part of this endeavor”, Nazari told the meeting.   

He noted that the national committee of world memory has been set up in Iran and includes representatives from different apparatuses including cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism organization, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the National Library and Archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the national committee of UNESCO, adding the committee is in charge of policy-making and the National Library is responsible for management and leading the missions.

Registration of 10 Iranian works on the list of world memory, five in the region and more than 50 works on the national scale are among the achievements of the committee, Nazari said, noting all the 10 global registered works are books and maps but “my hope is that audio-visual documents to be added to this list” he said.

All these documents are chosen based on very specific criteria and are sent to the committee for registration as specific files after approval, though they are in possession of the owner, which is Iran, he said.

 “Similarly, many oil industry documents, about the oil discovery and its extraction, building oil refineries, and oil nationalization movement are unique and unprecedented with global value. These documents are part of our contemporary heritage and Iran’s life is tied with the oil and we are very pleased that Petroleum Museums and Documents Center has been established to collect these important documents which could create a basis for their identification and registration as the national, regional and global heritage”, the public relations of Petroleum Museums quoted Nazari as saying.

Akbar Nematollahi, the director of petroleum museums and documents center started his remarks by telling the story of the formation of the petroleum museums. He said: the petroleum museums formation plan kicked off in 2014 in order to introduce the important place of 110 years of oil industry history to the public.

He told the meeting that petroleum museums and documents center at first had decided to establish oil industry museums in just three cities including Abadan and Masjed Solyman in the south and Tehran, the capital; but the vast background of oil industry activities across the country convinced us to put establishment of petroleum museums in other cities on the agenda. These cities included Kermanshah west of the country, Kerman in the southeast, Mashhad in northeast and Ahwaz in the southwest.

As we advanced with the plan, we realized that it was difficult to establish petroleum museums in pre-determined locations we had chosen, so we decided to limit their establishment at new locations and instead we find it better to set up these museums on the venue of old and historical buildings belonging to oil industry which could prevent their destruction as well.  

He noted: petroleum museums and documents center has focused its efforts on identification, collecting, preserving and protecting oil industry documents and up to now has been able to collect approximately 25 million pages of documents including historical, social, economic, political and geographical subjects as well as maps, telecommunication, personnel files, administrative reports, pictures, slides, negatives, films, and so on.

According to him, the writers, researchers and those interested in oil industry history are busy working on these documents some of them unique and very valuable which is hoped to be examined by the national committee of world memory so that pave the way for their registration as world heritage.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he said: the cultural heritage organization registered 93 oil sites as national heritage during the 1990s and after the formation of the petroleum museums and documents center, 11 other sites were added to the list including gas pumps in Abadan and Tehran, technical-vocational school, power plant no.1, oil jetties in Abadan, Darkhovain pump facility and Bibian distillation plant while there are nearly 20 other oil sites with historical value which have been identified, ready for undergoing registration process.