Laying oil pipeline in Palestine, 1930s. Trench digger at work on an oil pipeline. This is part of the laying of the Iraq Petroleum Company's pipeline across the Plain of Esdraelon (Jezreel Valley) in what was then Mandatory Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was ruled by the British between 1920 and 1948. After that date, this area became part of what is now Israel. The Iraq Petroleum Company was formed in 1929 from the renaming of the Turkish Petroleum Company (founded 1912). This photograph was between 1934 and 1939 by the American Colony Photo Department of Jerusalem.