H. W. A. Deterding was a Dutch petroleum executive who, having begun his Indies career as agent of the Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij in Penang, went on to become the principal architect of the Royal Dutch Shell concern. He is named in Ir. Van der Ploeg’s chapter Mijnbouw in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946) as the man who, at the invitation of Kessler — the first Director of the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij — built the sales organisation that allowed the Koninklijke’s Pangkalan Brandan refinery in Langkat (immediately adjacent to Atjeh) to compete with American lamp-oil on the world market.
Role in the Royal Dutch–Shell merger
According to Van der Ploeg’s account, Deterding — as the Koninklijke’s agent in Penang — “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.” From this Penang base he organised the sale of lamp-oil from the Langkat refinery on the nearby Singapore and Penang markets, and pressed into service “all the new things in transport (tank ships) and other departments” to maintain the Koninklijke’s competitive position against American oil.
After Kessler’s death in 1901, “Deterding, who after Kessler’s death had the reins of the Koninklijke alone in hand, set himself as a merchant wholly to work for this merger” — that is, for the merger of the Koninklijke with the Shell Transport and Trading Co. of Sir Marcus Samuel, whose petroleum storage and sales business in the East had been built on the Sanga-Sanga concession of Menten in Koetei, Borneo. 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; and “slowly most of the petroleum companies that had arisen in the Indies — some fifty in number — were absorbed into the Koninklijke–Shell concern, the last being the Dordtsche in 1911.”
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, Deterding’s significance is the geographical extension of his Penang-based commercial network into the Langkat–Deli petroleum belt of the Sumatra East Coast. The refinery at Pangkalan Brandan — the operational base of the Koninklijke under Kessler and Deterding — was the same refinery whose petroleum concession in Langkat (secured by Zijlker in 1884) had been the foundation of the modern Indonesian oil industry. Deterding’s role in building the sales organisation for this Langkat oil, and in brokering its merger into the Royal Dutch–Shell concern, thus ties the Atjeh-adjacent East Coast of Sumatra directly to the formation of one of the world’s major petroleum multinationals.
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
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Langkat — Langkat
- Deli — Deli
- Borneo — Borneo
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Pangkalan Brandan — Pangkalan Brandan
- Sanga-Sanga — Sanga-Sanga
- Koetei — Kutai
- merica — pepper (Malay)
- cut — title of honour (Atjeh)
- Dr. — Doctor
- Ir. — Engineer (Dutch Ingenieur)
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg
- A. J. B. Kessler
- Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij
- Royal Dutch Shell
- Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij
- Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij
- J. H. Menten
- Langkat
- Deli
- Penang
- Acheh
- 1884
- 1890
- 1901
- 1903
- 1906
- 1911
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 252–253 (chapter Mijnbouw door Ir. F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg).