Perlak-Petroleum-Mij

Properties2
tagsorganization, company, colonial, petroleum, dutch, acheh, oil, perlak, rantau-pandjang, bataafsche-petroleum-mij, zuid-perlak-petroleum-mij, pipe-line, oeléebalang, cijns
aliasesPerlak Petroleum Maatschappij, Perlak Oil Company, Perlak (oil), Perlak Petroleum-Mij, Hollandsche Perlak Maatschappij, Holland Perlak Maatschappij

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The Perlak-Petroleum-Mij — the Perlak Petroleum Company — was the Dutch colonial concession-holder of the Peureula oil-terrain in the onderafdeeling Langsa of the Afdeeling Oostkust van Atjeh, the historic territory of the former sultanaat of Perlak on Sumatra’s eastern coast. De Buitenbezittingen names the Perlak-Petroleum-Mij as the concessionaris whose Peureula-terrein — together with the neighbouring Oost-Peudawa — was, by 1917, “in exploitatie bij de Bataafsche Petr. Mij.”; the actual winning of crude oil was thus conducted by the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij as operator, while the Perlak-Petroleum-Mij remained the legal holder of the concession.

The Peureula concession

Of the five petroleum-concessions in the onderafdeelingen Idi and Langsa, totalling 8,652 H.A., three were still in exploitation in 1917: Oost-Peudawa, Peureula, and Zuid-Peureula. Of these, the Peureula concession was held by the Perlak-Petroleum-Mij and operated by the Bataafsche; the Zuid-Peureula concession was operated separately by the Petroleum-Mij. Zuid-Perlak, a sister-company. The two concessions together formed the most productive boorterrein in the gewest: in 1913 they yielded 164,100 K.G.-ton (Peureula) and 16,738 K.G.-ton (Zuid-Peureula) of crude oil, or together roughly 99% of the Atjehsche production of 182,447 K.G.-ton.

Output and the war

The production of the Peureula terrain declined, with the rest of the Atjehsche oil-fields, throughout the period covered by De Buitenbezittingen. The Peureula concession yielded 164,100 K.G.-ton in 1913, 135,700 in 1914, and 114,045 in 1915 — a fall of more than thirty per cent in two years. Zuid-Peureula showed a similar pattern: 16,738 in 1913, 11,434 in 1914, and 11,468 in 1915. The handbook remarks that “de voortdurende daling der productie zich ook na 1913 voortzet,” and notes that the war-induced disorganisation of European markets had much to do with the decline. All crude oil of the Perlak-Petroleum-Mij’s terrain was pumped, through the pijpleiding of more than 120 km — a 5″ oil-line of 800-ton capacity and a 4″ gas-line of 100-ton capacity — to the Bataafsche refinery at Pangkalan Brandan in the adjacent Cultuurgebied.

Financial relation to the landschap

The Perlak-Petroleum-Mij, like the other concessionaires, paid a vast recht of ƒ0.25 per H.A. (yielding ƒ1,300 per year minimum) and 4% of the bruto-opbrengst of crude oil. The proceeds of this royalty were shared: two-fifths went to the landschapskas of Peureula, the surviving political community of the old sultanaat of Perlak. The Peureula landschapskas, in turn, became a financial pillar of the new Credietbank “Langsa” — founded early 1915 as the third of the Volkscredietwezen institutions of the gewest — by depositing its advance-received aandeel in de cijns with the bank. “Vooral de hulp de Bataafsche Petroleum van Mij. te Pangkalan Brandan is voor deze bank gewicht,” De Buitenbezittingen notes, since the Maatschappij’s cijns-payments were “door de landschapskas … in voorschot gestort” and then re-deposited with the bank.

Significance

The Perlak-Petroleum-Mij represents, in De Buitenbezittingen’s account, the legal-institutional form through which the colonial state regulated the exploitation of Atjeh’s mineral wealth: the separation of concessionaris from exploitant allowed the Gouvernement to maintain the fiction of native landschap sovereignty over the subsoil — and to channel part of the royalty through the landschapskas — while ensuring that the technically demanding work of drilling and refining remained in the hands of the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij.

Account from Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis (1955)

The following account is drawn from the parliamentary history of the Dutch Second Chamber as narrated by Vermeulen in the colonial section of the 1955 fourth revised edition of Rengers’s *Schets*.

The Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij — the Perlak Oil Company — is the company whose Atjeh oilfields, in the Pedir region of the Atjeh north coast, were ceded to the Koninklijke for exploitation against a payment of ƒ 2.50 per ton of petroleum extracted, in the 1905-1910 contract disclosed by Van Heutsz and thereby triggering the Article 5a amendment of the Mijnwet in 1910.

The Perlak-Koninklijke contract

When, soon after the Rengers-era Mijnwet of Cremer had been enacted, Van Heutsz — then governor of Atjeh — reported that the Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij had ceded its Atjeh fields to the Koninklijke for exploitation against a payment of ƒ 2.50 per ton of petroleum extracted, he expressed the opinion that contracts such as the Perlak-Koninklijke contract could equally well be concluded by the Indies government itself, with greater benefit to the treasury.

The connexion to Perlak (Atjeh)

The name of the Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij derives from the Perlak region of the Atjeh north coast — the historical Muslim kingdom of Pasai-Perlak and one of the three component fields of the later Atjeh oil complex recorded in Van Bemmelen’s *Geology of Indonesia* (1949) Table 4. The Peureula field, operated by the N.L.A.M., produced 48,219 tons in 1940 (declining to 36,640 tons in 1941) — the largest producing field of the Atjeh oil complex.

Significance

The Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij is, in the Vermeulen colonial parliamentary record, the type-specimen of the Atjeh oil company whose contract with the Koninklijke triggered legislative intervention in the form of the Article 5a amendment of 1910. The episode is the first Atjeh-oil episode in the Vermeulen record.

Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)

The Perlak Petroleum-Mij — the Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij — was the oil-company whose terrains lie at Rantau Pandjang in the landschap of Peureula (Perlak) in the onderafdeeling Langsa of the afdeeling Oostkust van Atjeh, exploited by the Bataafsche Petroleum-Mij. The Bataafsche does not process the oil at Rantau Pandjang but pumps it through a 120 km pipe-line to Pangkalan Brandan on the Oostkust van Sumatra. Only the gases are compressed at Rantau Pandjang into oil, which is likewise pumped away. There is a substantial settlement at Rantau Pandjang with about thirty Europeans.

The Petroleum-Cijns

The petroleum-spring at Rantau Pandjang was discovered in May 1875 by officers of the man-of-war Timor. After 1912 the petroleum-cijns came into the landschapskas and the oeléebalang received a fixed income. From the oil the oeléebalang Teukoe Tjhi Perlak had drawn his riches, ‘die toch misschien wel overschat zijn’ — which perhaps may have been overrated. The cijns was the principal source of revenue of the landschap of Peureula (Perlak) in the civilian period, and the principal economic basis of the house of Tjhi.

Source

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter V, ‘Perlak, land van peper en olie’, pp. 36–37.

Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)

In author Joh. Langhout’s chapter “De Petroleum-ontginning” — drawing on the company’s own information — the history of the Perlak enterprise began with the petroleum springs of the landscape Peureula on the East Coast, which had been exploited “in native fashion” for centuries: an “Indische markt” (Indian market) had existed there from of old, where the oil won from four dug wells was brought to market — the source of the petroleum which the East India Company in the eighteenth century sometimes obtained from the Sultan of Atjeh and which was highly prized in the mother-country as a medicament. A few years after the Bataafsche’s 1890 start at Pangkalan Brandan over the border, the Hollandsche Perlak Maatschappij began her activity on actual Atjehnese ground, at Peureula — still in the un-pacified territory.

”The settlement of the oil-man means peace”

Langhout’s judgement on the Perlak enterprise reversed the popular legend that the military excursions merely covered the companies: on the estates the Atjehnese for the first time knew the Hollander otherwise than as a soldier; chiefs and great ones drew from the cijns (tribute) more than the heaviest taxing of their subjects had ever yielded; and the tact and language-knowledge of the administrator Allein reconciled the surrounding population to the point that 60% Atjehnese voluntary labour was reached within a short time. When raiding mountain bands once carried off all rice from the native and Chinese settlement, the enterprise’s full rice-barns — past which the bands had crossed the river — were left unmolested: “de vestiging van den olieman, zoo wisten de militairen, beteekent… de vrede!”

Output and December 1922

The Perlak concession-area was exploited by the Bataafsche; according to the official data she pumped in December 1922 from the tract Peureula “121197 ton” (as printed; probably 121,197 ton) of crude oil, with exploitation figures showing a steady increase over the last years.

See Also

Sources

De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 2: Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 230, 248–251.

The Perlak-Petroleum-Mij — the Perlak Petroleum Company — was the Dutch colonial concession-holder of the Peureula oil-terrain in the onderafdeeling Langsa of the Afdeeling Oostkust van Atjeh, the historic territory of the former sultanaat of Perlak on Sumatra’s eastern coast. De Buitenbezittingen names the Perlak-Petroleum-Mij as the concessionaris whose Peureula-terrein — together with the neighbouring Oost-Peudawa — was, by 1917, “in exploitatie bij de Bataafsche Petr. Mij.”; the actual winning of crude oil was thus conducted by the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij as operator, while the Perlak-Petroleum-Mij remained the legal holder of the concession.

De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 2: Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 230, 248–251.

Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), p. 306.

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim; Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), for the Koloniaal Instituut and Handelsmuseum.

Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 68, 83–85, 108, 160–163 (chapter “De Petroleum-ontginning”), illustration captions pp. 160, 162.

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