J. Zulkler was a Dutch private entrepreneur who, in 1883, obtained the first oil concession in North Sumatra — the concession that would, after the 1885 drilling success at Telaga Said, become the founding property of the northern-Sumatran oil industry and the distant ancestor of the East Atjeh, Tamiang and Atjeh complex oil fields on Atjeh territory. Zulkler’s concession is the earliest documented private oil property in northern Sumatra, predating the 1890 founding of the Koninklijke Maatschappij tot ontginning van Petroleum terreinen in Nederlandsch Indië (the future Royal Dutch) by seven years.
The 1883 concession and the 1885 drilling
Van Bemmelen’s account of the Zulkler concession, in the petroleum chapter of *The Geology of Indonesia*, is the only printed source:
“In 1883 a concession for oil had been granted in North Sumatra. The concessionary, J. ZulkER, met with considerable difficulties in drilling on account of an abundant flow of gas and asked the Government Bureau of Mines for assistance. A government crew, under the leadership of the mining engineer FENNEMA, was sent with drilling equipment and shortly afterwards, in 1885, this oil venture proved to be an outstanding success.”
The episode is significant on three counts. First, it is the first documented oil concession in northern Sumatra, and accordingly the founding legal episode of the northern-Sumatran oil industry. Second, the technical difficulty that Zulkler encountered — “an abundant flow of gas” — is the first recorded encounter with the high-pressure gas zones that would become a recurrent feature of northern-Sumatran drilling. Third, the fact that Zulkler had to ask the Government Bureau of Mines for technical assistance is the first documented instance of the public-private partnership model that would subsequently characterise the entire East Indian oil industry: private concessionaries held the legal rights, but the government supplied the geological expertise and (in the early years) the drilling equipment.
Place in the North-Sumatran oil record
The Zulkler concession of 1883 stands at the head of the documentary sequence of northern-Sumatran oil exploration:
- 1883: J. Zulkler obtains the first North-Sumatran oil concession.
- 1885: The Fennema-led government crew drills the Telaga Said well to success.
- 1890: The Koninklijke Maatschappij tot ontginning van Petroleum terreinen in Nederlandsch Indië (the future Royal Dutch) is founded and takes over the concession.
- 1907: Amalgamation of Royal Dutch with the Shell Transport and Trading Company, creating the Royal Dutch Shell group; the B.P.M. (Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij) is created as the Royal Dutch subsidiary for the Netherlands East Indies.
- 1912: The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey enters the Indies through its subsidiary the N.K.P.M. (Nederlandsche Koloniale Petroleum Maatschappij).
- 1931: The Standard Oil Company of California enters through its subsidiary the N.P.P.M. (Nederlandsche Pacific Petroleum Maatschappij).
- 1940–1941: The Van Bemmelen production tables record the East Atjeh, Tamiang and Atjeh complex fields on Atjeh territory.
Zulkler’s concession is the originating legal act of this sequence; without his 1883 application, the Telaga Said drilling of 1885 would not have taken place, and the northern-Sumatran oil industry might have followed a very different trajectory.
Significance
Zulkler is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because his 1883 oil concession is the originating legal episode of the northern-Sumatran oil industry — the industry that would, by the late colonial period, extend onto Atjeh territory with the East Atjeh, Tamiang and Atjeh complex fields. The northern-Sumatran oil economy is, in turn, the principal mineral-economic link between colonial Atjeh and the world economy in the first half of the twentieth century, and Zulkler’s concession is its starting-point.
See Also
- Acheh
- B.P.M.
- East Atjeh oil block
- N.K.P.M.
- N.P.P.M.
- Netherlands Indies Geological Survey
- Oil exploration in North Sumatra
- Ph. C. Fennema
- Royal Dutch Shell
- Telaga Said
- 1883
- 1885
- 1890
Source
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 7 (petroleum history).