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.