The East Atjeh oil block is one of the producing oil fields of Atjeh recorded in Van Bemmelen’s *Geology of Indonesia* (1949) under the North Sumatra heading of the 1940–1941 East Indian oil-production tables. The block produced 4,626 tons of 1000 kg (i.e. 4,626 metric tons) of crude oil in 1941, the only year for which a figure is given in Van Bemmelen’s Table 4 — implying that production began in 1941 rather than 1940. The East Atjeh block is part of the wider Atjeh oil complex that included the Peureula field (48,219 tons in 1940, 36,640 tons in 1941) and the Pasé field (1,797 tons in 1941).
Production figures
Van Bemmelen’s Table 4 records the following North-Sumatran oil production for 1940 and 1941, in tons of 1000 kg:
| Field | Operator | 1940 | 1941 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aru Bay | B.P.M. | 55,924 | 55,070 |
| Telaga Said | B.P.M. | 1,076 | 960 |
| Bulu Telang | B.P.M. | 919 | 900 |
| East Atjeh (block) | B.P.M. | — | 4,626 |
| [[Tamiang oil block | Tamiang (block)]] | B.P.M. | 709,625 |
| S. Aru Bay (block) | B.P.M. | 2,100 | 5,030 |
| Peureula (Atjeh complex) | N.L.A.M. | 48,219 | 36,640 |
| South Perlak (Atjeh complex) | N.L.A.M. | — | — |
| Pulu Pandjang (Atjeh complex) | N.K.P.M. | — | — |
| [[Pasé oil field | Pasé]] (Atjeh complex) | N.P.P.M. | — |
| Rokan block | N.P.P.M. | — | 1,402 |
| Total North Sumatra | — | 920,755 | 728,682 |
The operator of the East Atjeh block is the B.P.M. (Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij, the Royal Dutch subsidiary), which also operated the larger Aru Bay, Telaga Said and Bulu Telang fields immediately to the south. The East Atjeh block accordingly belongs to the B.P.M.-operated northern-Sumatran petroleum complex that extended from the Aru Bay area at the southern edge of the residency northward into Atjeh proper.
Geological context
Van Bemmelen classifies the East Atjeh block as one of the “steep folds (Atjeh, Borneo)” that were “repeatedly investigated by drilling but the results have not been encouraging”. The implication is that the East Atjeh oil is hosted in steeply-folded neogene sediments — a structural style that, in the colonial reading of the geology, was less favourable for oil accumulation than the gently-domed anticlines of the South-Sumatran and East-Borneo fields. The modest size of the 1941 production (4,626 tons, against 709,625 tons from the Tamiang block in 1940) is consistent with this assessment.
Significance
The East Atjeh oil block is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because it is one of the four recorded colonial-era producing oil fields on Atjeh territory — the others being the Peureula, Pulu Pandjang and Pasé fields of the Atjeh oil complex, and (depending on the colonial boundary) the Tamiang block. The East Atjeh block accordingly belongs to the small group of Atjeh localities at which colonial-era oil production actually took place, and its 1941 production figure is one of the few quantitative records of Atjeh’s contribution to the colonial East Indian petroleum economy.
See Also
- Acheh
- Aru Bay
- Atjeh oil complex
- B.P.M.
- Bulu Telang
- N.L.A.M.
- N.K.P.M.
- N.P.P.M.
- Oil exploration in North Sumatra
- Pasé oil field
- Peureula
- Pulu Pandjang
- Tamiang oil block
- Telaga Said
- Van Bemmelen’s The Geology of Indonesia (1949)
- 1940
- 1941
Source
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 9 (Table 4: Oil production in the East Indies in 1940 and 1941).