Arakan Library - Indigenous Production Methods in Arakan

Arakan: - One Who Preserves and Takes Care of Their Own Nationality.

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Arakan Library was founded by a group of Arakan Action Association (AAA) in exile in Thailand from Burma in 2007 doing to voice for the knowledge, the people democratic and human rights.

Arakan Action Association (AAA)

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Oil in Burma

by <Marilyn v. Longuir>

Indigenous Production Methods in Arakan

Although Mallet was interested in geology and future commercial exploitation of oil, he also provided glimpses of early indigenous oil collecting:

About the end of December, or early in January, when the rice crop has been harvested, and the villagers have spare time on their hands, some of them take to well-digging as a means of adding to their income. The oil season lasts from that time till the rains, when the wells, which are most frequently sunk in, or close to, the bed of some nulla, get filled with water, and are often choked up entirely by debris washed into them.(212)

In Arakan, the monsoon season begins in Jyly and continues through to October, Arakan is very wet, and Remree Island would receive well in excess of 175 inches (4.445 m) per annum. Mallet came to the conclusion that the oil wells on these inlands could be divided into two distinct classes, "those which appear to be in communication with a natural reservoir, from which the oil, generally accompanied by large quantities of gas, rises with considerable rapidity, and those sunk in rock more or less soaked with petroleum from which the oil slowly exfiltrates into the well"(212).

Quantities extracted were small. One such well at Ledaung was "about 25 feet [7.6m] deep and 4 feet [1.2m] square" and completely lined with wood. Oil was drawn, both morning and evening, and at each drawing, the well yielded fifteen bottles (212). Another well, about 183 metres distant, was 12 metres deep and yielded "about 25 bottles twice a day." Mallet was informed "that these wells…. [had] been in existence since the time of Burmese domination, and that the yield of oil… [had] not diminished." Although Mallet could not verify these figures, he deduced that if a large reservoir of oil was being tapped from "a small duct leading to the bottom of the well," such production was possible (212-13).

Mallet also examined wells near "Minbain," or Minbyin, on Ramree. Here "several scores" were of the second type, where the oil percolated into pit wells "4 feet in diameter, and …. [varying] in depth from 5 or 6 to 10 or 12 feet…. Sunk in a tough grey clunch, which is generally covered by a foot or two of surface soil." A hole of about 20 cm diameter was dug near the bottom of the wells, and the oil accumulated in this hollow, from where it was collected twice a day. A good well yielded eight to ten bottles per day, but the yield declined rapidly. As at Ledaung, the wells were "worked from about the beginning of December till the commencement of the wet season." At the end of each wet season, new wells would be dug. When Mallet visited Minbyin in 1878, the aggregated annual production of this field amounted to "about a thousand rupees worth of oil." Mallet estimated this return as "6,000 bottles or about 1,000 gallons"(214).

On Cheduba a different method of oil collection was in place. Its oil producing soil was turned "to a depth of 2 feet." This area was then surrounded by " a bank of earth, so as to form a shallow pond during the rains, about 20 yards square: gas and oil rise through the water, the … [oil being] skimmed off and collected." Similar methods of oil collection were used by American Indians on the Pennsylvanian oil fields (Redwood, 360). Halstead had earlier noted these shallow wells on Cheduba Island in the early 1840s, including one well whose production was given as "nearly 200 pots annually.