Dumai residents threaten to seize oil refinery

Dumai residents threaten to seize oil refinery

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Residents of the Riau town of Dumai threatened on Wednesday to
block the operations of an oil refinery belonging to state-owned
Pertamina unless a local is appointed general manager.

The threat is serious, the field coordinator of the Dumai
People's Forum (Formad), Ruslan, told Antara news agency.

He said local residents would seize the refinery and prevent
foreign ships from loading and unloading oil at the site.

The threat was made during two days of protests by Formad
activists, who occupied the Pertamina office in Dumai and
prevented employees from working.

However, activities at the refinery continued as usual on
Wednesday, and the protesters allowed employees to get back to
their work following negotiations with security officers.

But the protesters said if Pertamina's executive board in
Jakarta did not respond positively to their demand by Wednesday
afternoon, they would make good on their threat to seize the
refinery.

Ruslan said local residents would reject anyone appointed by
Pertamina's executive board as general manager of its Dumai
operations.

Formad has demanded that Syamsirwan, a local engineer, be
appointed to replace the unnamed general manager recently
appointed by Pertamina, who served a similar role at an oil
refinery in East Kalimantan.

The protest has won the support of the Dumai mayoralty
administration, which has lashed out at the Pertamina management
for failing to heed the desires of local residents.

Dumai Mayor Wan Syamsir Yus said he supported demands for
Pertamina to appoint Syamsirwan as general manager of the firm's
local operations.

"It is strange that Pertamina has not listened to the people's
demand .... So they (people) took this action in Dumai," Syamsir
Yus said as quoted by Antara.

The mayor said that although Syamsirwan was not a native of
Dumai, being born in Tembilahan subdistrict, Indragiri Hilir
regency, also in Riau, he had the backing of the people of Dumai.

He said Syamsirwan should have been promoted from his current
position as manager of Pertamina's oil refinery in Dumai.

The appointment of the current general manager, who is not a
local, is "unfair" to the local people because he will only hold
the post for six months before retiring, Syamsir Yus said.

"You know what a person who will retire soon is seeking from
his post," he said.

Forced seizures, blockages or even strikes have often been
used by locals in Riau to force oil companies in the province,
including the country's largest oil contractor, Caltex Pacific
Indonesia, to heed their demands.

Caltex has been forced several times to cease production in
its fields due to blockages by locals.

Through such efforts, the local people want to get a bigger
share of the revenues from the crude oil pumped up from their
soil.

The campaign by the locals seems to have born fruit with the
government having eventually bowed to local demands.

Not only that, the government has also agreed to transfer the
operations of an expired oil field from Caltex to locals through
the local administration.

After a long process, the government eventually transferred
earlier this week the operations of the Coastal Plains Pekanbaru
(CPP) oil block from Caltex to a joint venture firm involving
Pertamina and the Riau provincial administration-owned firm PT
Bumi Siak Pusako.

The joint venture company will start work in the block on
August 1.