Indonesian Oil

May 2007

Native owned and producing oil wells on the island of Java, near CEPU
Photos and story by Allen Johnston

The Javanese are a very friendly, industrious and resourceful people. The oil wells that you will see have been around for decades. The National Oil Company dug the wells originally and when they played out, they left. The locals took over the abandoned wells and have come up with an ingenious way to make use of what is left in the reservoirs. I have never seen anything like it anywhere else.

They first find an abandoned well with the casing still intact. They erect a wooden derrick over the well head. The wells still seep oil, but very slowly. Over a 24 hour period, there will be a window of about 4 hours where enough oil has seeped into the well to exploit. After that time, there is too much water downhole and they have to wait for the next day.

Notice the old truck body. The engine is used to pull the cable with the dipping bucket up and down the well. This is a high end rig. It actually has a running engine.

Rig Supervisor directing the catch tube with a mix of oil and water to the drainage ditch where it will dump. You can see the oil/water mix start down the ditch to the separator.

One of the better off wells. This one has an old truck engine mounted to the right in the lean to. The guy on the right (near the engine) runs the engine and shifts its transmission with his bare toes. The other guy runs the winch. They sit there and chat and smoke cigarettes with all that crude oil around them

Another picture of the Rig Supervisor dumping the contents of the catch tube into the trough. The slurry will flow downhill to the Separation Plant

The SEPARATOR. This is where the slurry from the capture bucket is sent. It dumps from the bucket and follows a ditch to this pit where the men allow the oil and water to separate. The oily water is thrown downhill. What crude they can capture is poured into 8 gallon buckets which are carried two to a pole coolie style by a worker to the refinery.

This is where the runoff from the separator unit goes. It has been approved by Al Gore

 The Pipeline from well head to the refinery

These guys work for another, less well funded operation. They dont have an ancient truck motor which is shifted by one barefoot native. This is the Javanese version of the Top Drive Unit (Javanese 12-Leg TDU). They are actually the winch motor for the cable and bucket on the next well down.

A view of the Refinery from the well head. Each well has its own distillation unit.

The Refinery. What you see here is a crude pipestill. Buried in the earth above the fire is a 55-gallon drum. You can see the outline of the lid at the top of the picture. The lid is uncovered, crude is poured into the drum then it is recovered and sealed with a clay that is hand (foot) mixed. Once it is sealed, the wood fire below brings the crude up to temperature until it starts to crack, or separate into vapors.

This guy is the refining engineer. He monitors the heating of the pipe still and watches for a certain vapor to start appearing in a small opening they have made in the top of the drum and clay seal. He watches the vapor, rubs it with his fingers and feels for what I dont know, then puts the metal cap over the vapor area. The cap directs the vapors into a pipe that is submerged in the pool on the right. That is the heat exchanger / cooling tower.

This little guy is about 150 years old. He stands in a pit (right behind him) and just walks up and down, mixing water with clay. The clay mixture is placed on top of the drum to contain and direct the vaporization.

The little old gentleman. Mixing the clay for the drum seal.

Another view of the pipestill. The refining engineer has placed the top cap on the sealed drum lid and is forcing the vapors to enter the cooling pipe (under the water on the bottom right). Notice the cottony vapor that is escaping from the bottom of the top cap. That is vaporized carbon molecules. You can see where they spilled some crude as they filled the drum. But I am sure that Al has approved it.

A better picture of the vapors before the cap is put on.

Pak Johnny inspecting the heat exchanger. The vapors enter the submerged pipe at the bottom of the picture, travel about 20ft to the other end, where they condense into Diesel. I am told that they can recover about 80% of the original crude as diesel. The diesel is sold to local farmers to run equipment.

Some of the product going to the market. They carry everything on those motorcycles. Up to and including goats and calves.

THE END