Wonocolo village, East Java is the only place in Indonesia and may be in the world that oils is explored and managed by a small group of peoples. The oils was discover by Dordsche Petroleum Maatschappij (DPM), a Ducth Oil Company in 1879 that was very fortunate found oil instead of water to supply the nearby city.

There are 36 hereditary wells that still in production until now and provide a job for 600-800 peoples that work in weekly shift rotation. The smallest one can provide 7 drums per day with the value of Rp 28,000/drum of 200-liter size, gaining Rp 20,000 per person (USD USD 2.1/person) per day of a group of 10 peoples. Working hours is 05:00 am to 10:00 am, very short indeed allowing enough time for oil to seep and collected in the catchments holes for the next day exploitation. “Latung”, the local name for crude oil was bucketing back and forth from 4” dia. hole as deep as 400 meter by using a wire line that powered by 10 peoples muscle. The largest one can produce up to 70 drum/day/well that justify enough to use a mechanized system such as a rejuvenated 1950’s Thames dump truck. The driver just sit there all day, push the gas pedal then brake it repetitively to lower and rising the wire line rolled using the right side of the rear wheel that the tire had been dismantled.

The oil entrepreneurship in Wonocolo provides sufficient added value to keep life going. The “latung” exploration normally as side revenue of growing “Jati” Timber that well known in that area. The latung is separated from water by a simple gravitation settling in the small pond, collected in the drums, then transferred to the main storage by peoples carried on their shoulder, then by truck to a final destination to Migas Refinery.

Adrian Stoop, the Engineer of DPM who discovered the oil may surprise if he know that the oil is still explored with the unique technology that he was carried out in 130 years ago. The best comparison of these tough peoples in exploiting the oil was a Texan during Wild West era in Texas.

They are truly smart peoples using their way to keep the profit positive for many decades that a big firm simply abandons it. It is a lesson to me that the term “economically justify” is not always use the same assumption.


Archie