Edward L. Doheny prices were high. The Mexican Petroleum Company was the largest in Mexico, and Mexico was the largest oil producer in the world. In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company. Around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation. Both oilfields were part of the US Navy's petroleum reserves. Neither lease was subject to competitive bidding. In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal. Doheny's reputation was somewhat
MV British Motorist (1924) MV British Motorist (1924) MV "British Motorist" was a 6,891 ton tanker, built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1924 for the British Tanker Company. While under charter to the merchant navy, she was in port in Darwin, Australia when on 19 February 1942, she was hit by two bombs during the Japanese air raid on Darwin and was sunk, resting in of water. She had been carrying oil, aviation fuel and petrol and was refuelling when the raid commenced. Two of her crew were killed out of 61 in the initial attack: the master Gilbert