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

Publication by Arakan Action Association (AAA.)

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.

 

Copyright © 2007 Arakan Libray All Rights Reserved.                                                                                           Free counter, Since 2005.

                                

Arakan Action Association (AAA)

Chotana Road , Chaing Mai ( 50301 ), Thailand.

Email : arakanactionassociation@walla.com , +66—089-637-4383, +66—053-409-577

Oil in Burma

by  <Marilyn v. Longuir>

The Indigenous Oil Industry in Arakan and Yenangyaung

As can be seen from the foregoing, the oil industry on the Arakan Islands before the intrusion of Europeans was small and localized. Mallet (1878a, 212) noted that the wells on both Ramree and Cheduba were not "in the hands of any special class." This remark directly related to the situation that prevailed at Yenangyaung in Upper Burma where the indigenous handdug well industry was controlled by a hereditary monopoly known as twinzayo. Over the years, the number of wells at Yenangyaung and their total production have at times been greatly exaggerated, but the number of productive wells in the 1870s would have been somewhere between 130 and 200 (Noetling 1898, 175). Well numbers varied. On the same mission to Ava in 1855 Dr Thomas Oldman had counted 200, Captain Henry Yule 130, while in 1873 Captain Strover noted 150 wells.

 

A large domestic market for Yenangyaung crude was in existence, with earthenware jars carrying the oil shipped to various river ports along the Irrawaddy and associated riverine systems, and even to the Coromandel coast and Bengal (Sangermano, 191). A European overseas market was established in the mid-1850s, with Price's Patent Candle Company in London importing Burmese oil, which the company refined to produce paraffin wax for their candle-marking. Other by-products, such as burning and lubricating oils were also produced. By 1875 regular shipments were received in London, but the market feded out when the company could not sell these by-products (A Brief History, 10-11; Still the Candle, 32-3; Corley 1983, 1:8-10). Colverd says that the shipment of Burmese petroleum to England was stopped late in 1859, because of the marketing failure of one product (Colverd 1972, 237).

 

Production figures of Yenangyaung prior to annexation in 1886 are difficult to assess. Noetling (1898, 195) believed that the estimate given by Captain Strover in 1873 of 500,000 viss monthly was fairly accurate. Captain G.A. Strover, the political agent at Mandalay, had estimated total production as "6,000,000 viss per annum, or 9,375 tons" (Memorandum on the Metals and Minerals of Upper Burmah, 22 January 1873, 5, IOR P698). Such production figures would confirm the claim that the Yenangyaung oil industry was the largest in the pre-1859 world (Owen, 2). On the other hand, the Arakan pit wells and soaks were simply a local industry. They were worked part-time by agricultural workers, in slack months, to produce the oil needed by the local community.