A. J. B. Kessler was a Dutch industrialist who served as the first Director of the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Petroleum Company), the petroleum company founded in 1890 on the basis of the 1884 concession secured by Zijlker in the Landschap (self-governing territory) of Langkat on the Sumatra East Coast, immediately adjacent to Atjeh. Kessler is named in Ir. Van der Ploeg’s chapter Mijnbouw in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946) as the man who, “through almost superhuman effort,” succeeded in raising the Koninklijke’s production at its Pangkalan Brandan refinery in Langkat to a level that allowed the company to pay a modest dividend in 1895.
Role in the Koninklijke
According to Van der Ploeg’s account, the Koninklijke built its refinery at Pangkalan Brandan in Langkat but was immediately forced to compete on the world market with American lamp-oil, “even if in the beginning [it remained active] on the nearby markets of Singapore and Penang.” The first years were difficult. Kessler, as the Koninklijke’s first Director, secured the help of H. W. A. Deterding — then agent of the Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij in Penang — for the sale of lamp-oil. Deterding “saw at once the great importance of a good sales organisation, which he therefore, in those days a novelty, set up under his own management.” Tankers and other transport innovations were pressed into service to maintain the Koninklijke’s competitive position.
Kessler’s death in 1901 opened the way for the eventual merger of the Koninklijke with the Shell Transport and Trading Co. of Sir Marcus Samuel, brokered by Deterding (who after Kessler’s death “took the reins of the Koninklijke alone in hand”). The merger came into effect in 1903, with the founding of the “Asiatic” sales organisation; in 1906 the Bataafsche was founded as the production arm and the Anglo-Saxon as the transport arm. The Koninklijke–Shell concern that emerged from this series of mergers — today’s Royal Dutch Shell — was thus built on the foundations laid by Kessler in the Langkat oilfields of the Sumatra East Coast.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, Kessler’s significance is the placement of the Langkat oilfield — directly adjacent to Atjeh — at the head of the modern Indonesian petroleum story. The Koninklijke’s Pangkalan Brandan refinery in Langkat, brought into production under Kessler’s directorship, was the operational base from which the late-colonial Dutch petroleum industry expanded into the wider Indies; the same refinery’s competition with American oil on the Singapore and Penang markets placed the Atjeh-adjacent East Coast of Sumatra at the intersection of Dutch, American and British commercial interests in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij — Netherlands Trading Society
- Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij — Dordrecht Petroleum Company
- Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij — Royal Petroleum Company
- Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij — Batavian Petroleum Company
- Landschap — self-governing territory
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Langkat — Langkat
- Deli — Deli
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Pangkalan Brandan — Pangkalan Brandan
- merica — pepper (Malay)
- Dr. — Doctor
- Ir. — Engineer (Dutch Ingenieur)
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg
- H. W. A. Deterding
- Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij
- Royal Dutch Shell
- Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij
- Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij
- Langkat
- Deli
- Acheh
- 1884
- 1890
- 1895
- 1901
- 1903
- 1906
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 252 (chapter Mijnbouw door Ir. F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg).