House flag, Burmah Oil Co. (Tankers) Ltd

The house flag of Burmah Oil Co. (Tankers) Ltd, London. A rectangular flag divided diagonally into red and blue by a white stripe from bottom left to top right. The letters 'BOC' are placed diagonally across the flag in the opposite direction and are coloured white, black and white. The flag is made of a wool and synthetic fibre bunting. It has a cotton hoist and is machine sewn. A rope and toggle is attached.

Registered to 1886 to exploit oil reserves in Burma, the shipping company began to acquire its own tankers in 1899. The company lost its oilfields in Burma when they were nationalized by the newly independent government in the 1950s. On the basis of substantial compensation the company became a large shareholder in BP. It expanded its commercial operations again and took over a small tanker-owning company - Lobitos Oilfields Ltd, London, in the early 1960s. The group's deep sea tankers were owned by Burmah Oil Co. (Tankers) Ltd was based in the Bahamas but was managed from London. During the 1980s the firm sold off its subsidiaries and concentrated on the manufacture and marketing of specialized oil and chemical products and the transportation of liquified natural gas.