Muscat and Oman

A marvellous work so learned, so full of insight and yet often so funny. Jan Morri

Ian Skeet worked throughout the Middle East for more than thirty years (1953-85) employed by Shell. This gave him unique access to the interior tribes and communities of Muscat and Oman from 1966-68 when he worked for Sultan Said bin Timur as the liaison officer for Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), explaining the project, the useful future revenues and its vulnerable pipelines to the tribes and sheikhs of the interior. During this period, his wife Elizabeth and their three young children lived in Beit Fransawi, the old French Consulate. Ian Skeet graduated from Merton College, Oxford and after retiring from Shell in 1985 worked as a consultant on the oil politics of the Middle East, leaving room to write Oman: Politics and Development and OPEC: 25 Years of Prices and Politics and to edit a selection of the writings of Paul Frankel.