Arakan Library - Conclusion

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.

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>

Conclusion

The failure of the Arakan industry exhibited the classic faults of most unsuccessful oil ventures. Unlike the canny Scottish merchants associated with Burmah Oil, the Arakan promotes were speculators. Without geologists to caution them, these oil explorers were swept along by euphoria kept alive by tales of Yenangyaung riches, the spectacular successes in the United States and the later Baku oil fields, and government reports of local wells and oil seepage in Arakan.

From the records, it does appear that the Government of India, through its chief commissioner, endeavored to encourage Annual fees were not large, particularly from the mid - 1870s onwards: royalties were low at 5%, and Boronga Oil was exempted from an annual lease payment for thirty years. This was not to be the case at Yenangyaung where at first Burmah Oil was required to pay a 20% royalty on oil exported from the field (Letter No. 16, Govt. of India, 27 May 1890). In 1891 this royalty was reduced to 8 annas per 100 viss (Sec., Chief Commissioner, Burma to Govt. of India, R&A Dept., 9 February 1891, IOR P 3814).

The frugal Savage with his Arakanese workers and homemade equipment survived, while the larger companies with their Canadian drillers and expensive imported equipment failed. We do not know whether Savage made a fortune or not, but in 1908, he still owned several leases on the group of Boronga Islands. By then, however, production was minimal (Pascoe 1912, 198-99).

As production fell, the price of Arakan oil rose, and cheap American and Russian imports of kerosene all began to undersell it in its traditional markets of Akyab and Chittagong. At the same time, Burmah Oil launched a cheap locally refined oil. Thereafter the demise of the Arakan oil industry was simply a matter of time.

Did the earlier Arakan experiment have consequences for the oil industry of Upper Burma after annexation? Certainly the Arakan industry provided the British administration with some limited experience in regulating both oil fields and prospectors. The first prospecting license granted by the local government to Finlay Fleming, managing agents for Burmah Oil at Yenangyaung, was “in the form used for the Minbyin oil-explorers” (Jnr. Sec., Chief Commissioner to Civil Officer, Minhla, 10 February 1886, IOR P 2664 A). Probably, too, the financial losses of the failed companies on the Arakan oil fields discouraged commercial investment in the fields of Yenangyaung. Certainly, even on such an established field, Burmah Oil had few rivals until 1906, a full twenty years after annexation.