The N.P.P.M. (Nederlandsche Pacific Petroleum Maatschappij, “Netherlands Pacific Oil Company”) was the subsidiary through which the Standard Oil Company of California entered the Netherlands East Indies oil industry in 1931. For Atjeh specifically, the N.P.P.M. was the operator of the Pasé field in the Atjeh oil complex and of the Rokan block (1,402 tons in 1941) — the only documented instances of N.P.P.M. operations on Atjeh-relevant territory. The N.P.P.M. was also, together with the B.P.M. and the N.K.P.M., one of the three private concerns that jointly ran the N.N.G.P.M. (Netherlands New Guinea Petroleum Company), in which the N.P.P.M. represented the California Standard and Texas Company interests (20 % of the N.N.G.P.M., with Royal Dutch Shell and Standard Vacuum each holding 40 %).
Founding and structure
Van Bemmelen’s account of the N.P.P.M.’s founding reads:
“In 1931 the ‘Nederlandsche Pacific Petroleum Maatschappij’ (Netherlands Pacific Oil Company, N.P.P.M.), a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of California, entered the field of competition, but production has not yet started.”
The N.P.P.M.’s entry into the East Indian oil industry in 1931 marked the second significant American participation in the East Indian oil industry, after the N.K.P.M. (Standard Oil of New Jersey) in 1912. The N.P.P.M.’s late entry — two decades after the N.K.P.M. and a quarter-century after the B.P.M. — is reflected in its modest production figures: the 1941 production of the Pasé field (1,797 tons) and the Rokan block (1,402 tons) together accounted for only 3,199 tons, or 0.04 % of the East Indian crude total of 7,241,254 tons in 1941. Van Bemmelen’s observation that “production has not yet started” at the time of the N.P.P.M.’s entry in 1931 suggests that the company spent its first decade in the Indies on exploration rather than on production — a pattern consistent with the N.P.P.M.’s late entry and its consequent need to find and develop new concessions in an industry already dominated by the B.P.M. and the N.K.P.M.
N.P.P.M. operations on Atjeh-relevant territory
The N.P.P.M. is recorded in Van Bemmelen’s Table 4 as the operator of two North-Sumatran fields:
- The Pasé field in the Atjeh oil complex (no production in 1940; 1,797 tons in 1941).
- The Rokan block (no production in 1940; 1,402 tons in 1941).
The Pasé field is on Atjeh territory proper; the Rokan block is in the East-Coast-of-Sumatra residency immediately to the south of Atjeh, but is part of the same petroleum-geological system as the Atjeh fields. The N.P.P.M. is accordingly the operator of the only Atjeh-complex field brought into production in 1941 (i.e. the newest of the Atjeh-complex fields), and its Pasé operation is the clearest colonial instance of N.P.P.M. (i.e. Standard Oil of California) production on Atjeh territory.
The Duri field
Van Bemmelen also records that the N.P.P.M. discovered the Duri field in 1941, which “most probably, will be producing” — though the Duri field is in central Sumatra rather than in Atjeh. The Duri field would subsequently become one of the largest oil fields in Indonesia, and its discovery in 1941 accordingly marks the N.P.P.M.’s principal geological achievement in the East Indian oil industry. The N.P.P.M.’s operations on Atjeh-relevant territory (Pasé and Rokan) are, by contrast, modest in scale and represent a minor part of the company’s overall East Indian portfolio.
Significance
The N.P.P.M. is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because it was the operator of the Pasé field in the Atjeh oil complex — the only Atjeh-complex field brought into production in 1941, and the only documented instance of N.P.P.M. (i.e. Standard Oil of California) production on Atjeh territory. The N.P.P.M.’s presence on Atjeh territory, however modest, is the documentary evidence that the Atjeh oil complex was divided among three different oil companies — the N.L.A.M. (Peureula, South Perlak), the N.K.P.M. (Pulu Pandjang) and the N.P.P.M. (Pasé) — and accordingly that the Atjeh oil landscape was characterised by a fragmentation of concessionary interests that contrasted with the B.P.M.-dominated East-Atjeh and Tamiang blocks. The N.P.P.M.’s late entry (1931) and its consequent need to find and develop new concessions in an industry already dominated by the B.P.M. and the N.K.P.M. also make the Atjeh-complex fields a representative case-study of the N.P.P.M.’s overall East Indian strategy.
See Also
- Acheh
- Atjeh oil complex
- B.P.M.
- East Atjeh oil block
- N.I.A.M.
- N.K.P.M.
- N.L.A.M.
- N.N.G.P.M.
- Oil exploration in North Sumatra
- Pasé oil field
- Peureula
- Pulu Pandjang
- Royal Dutch Shell
- Tamiang oil block
- Van Bemmelen’s The Geology of Indonesia (1949)
- 1931
- 1941
Source
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 7 (N.P.P.M. founding), p. 9 (Table 4: Oil production in 1940 and 1941), p. 11 (Duri field discovery).