The Abadan Refinery is notable regardless of its appearance on philatelic items. It was the first large-capacity refinery in the Middle East, launched back in 1912 by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), the predecessor of modern BP. The very fact that large oil reserves were discovered in Iran sparked interest in the region from leading geologists around the world: and so the Berlin-Baghdad railway was being built, the British and French were dividing the "inheritance" of the still-living Ottoman Empire on maps, and a German geological exploration party working in modern-day Iraq was preparing reports that, twenty years later, would help British and American companies "unlock" the geological safe of natural wealth in the Persian Gulf countries. However, that moment was still far off. For now, in the Khuzestan province, workers were laying oil pipelines from Iran's first oil field, Masjed Soleyman, to Iran's first refinery. This field continues to operate to this day, almost a century after its peak production in 1928.