The Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) is an integrated petroleum company that is the national oil company of Bahrain.
It was founded in 1929 and discovered the first oil field in the Persian Gulf outside of Iran in 1932. Shipments of crude oil commenced in 1934 and in 1936 the first refinery in the Gulf outside of Iran was built. The founders were the American Standard Oil of California, which was soon joined by Texaco, operating under British rule. While Bahrain never was a high-volume crude oil producer, the American joint venture a few years later came into possession of the vast Saudi Arabian oil reserves, which are located on the mainland in the vicinity of Bahrain Island. Supplied from the mainland, the refinery though exceeded the capacity of the Bahrain oil field from its inception and was among the largest in the region. The Bahrein concession was the first of 3 concessions awarded exclusively to American interests in the Middle East and was followed by Aramco in Saudi Arabia and by the joint venture active in the Saudi Arabian–Kuwaiti neutral zone.