OIL: Back from Abadan

Over the mud flats of the Isle of Grain, 40 miles down the Thames from London, rose a strange new smell. It was the acrid odor of distilling oil from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.'s Kent refinery, which went into operation last week. When it gets into full production late this year, the $112 million refinery will boost the company's output of gasoline and other petroleum products by 80,000 bbls. a day—1½ times as much as all of Britain's prewar capacity.

For Anglo-Iranian, the Kent plant was the first big milestone on the road...