Abadan: Oil City Dreams and the Nostalgia

In 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (its Iranian properties were nationalized in 1951 as the National Iranian Oil Company) established its pipeline terminus refinery at Ābādān. The refinery began operating in 1913, and by 1956 Ābādān had become a city of more than 220,000 inhabitants, with an economy almost entirely based on petroleum refining and shipping.