Middle East. They created associated companies, one for each territory to be explored. These companies were collectively known as "The IPC Group". They would obtain from the sovereign power an exploration licence covering simple exploration over a defined geographical area, or a concession permitting exploration and the production of oil. By 1948, the company had created 12 companies with concessions or exploration licences: Petroleum Development (Cyprus Ltd), Lebanon Petroleum Company Ltd, Petroleum Development (Palestine) Ltd, Syrian Petroleum Company Ltd, Trans-Jordan Petroleum Company Ltd, Mosul Petroleum Company Ltd, Basrah Petroleum Company Ltd, Petroleum Development (Qatar) Ltd, Petroleum Development (Trucial Coast) Ltd, Petroleum Development (Oman and Dhofar) Ltd, Petroleum Concessions Ltd (for the Aden Protectorates), Petroleum Development (Western Arabia) Ltd. In 1933, IPC joined negotiations for an oil concession in Al-Hasa province, Saudi Arabia, bidding against Standard Oil of California (SOCAL, later renamed Chevron). Represented by Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, the company's bid failed when it offered payment in rupees rather than the gold that King Abdul-Aziz (also known as Ibn Saud) desired. SOCAL gained the concession and, joined by the Texas Oil Company in 1936, went on to discover oil at Dammam through its subsidiary, California-Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc) in 1938. Thereafter, IPC concentrated its efforts in Arabia in developing its Qatar oil concession (oil discovered 1939), Abu Dhabi (oil discovered in 1959), Oman (see Petroleum Development Oman) and the Aden Protectorates (in today's Yemen). IPC personnel carried out a series of ground-breaking explorations in southern Arabia during these years. The failure of IPC to secure concessions in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia should not obscure the fact that elsewhere in the Middle East the company was successful in closing the "open door" of commercial opportunity to outsiders. The principal competitors for concessions were British Oil Development Co. Ltd.(BOD), and SOCAL. When BOD became interested in concessions in northern Iraq, IPC eventually bought them out. So successful were its efforts that by the end of 1944 IPC was operating in over of territory, an area larger in size than the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana combined. In addition, IPC attempted, though without success, to extend further its area of operations by seeking concessions or exploration permits in Turkey and in the neutral zones of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In 1937, IPC signed an oil concession agreement with the Sultan of Muscat that would cover the entire region of the Sultanate.