Annual report / State of Brunei.

Date:
[1955]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report / State of Brunei. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    80/254 page 64
    Marketing remains in the hands of a limited number of licenced merchants (Towkay s). The ‘Towkay’ system, largely finances the fishing Industry in Brunei, the fisherman obtaining the necessary and boats, and in some cases even food from his ‘Towkay, and is thereafter considered to be under ‘contract’ to hand over to the Towkay all the fish he catches. This system is open to abuse, and is not really satisfactory, for often the initial debt is out of all proportion to the fisherman’s earnings and is carried on indefinitely. It is, however, of advantage during the monsoon seasons when for days the fisherman may be weather¬ bound and unable to put to sea. The introduction of power driven craft, however, with, as can be observed from the foregoing tables, a resultant increase in the fisherman’s returns, should in time enable the fisherman to become independent of the Towkay system, and consideration is now being given to a marketing scheme which it is hoped will to a large extent remove from the few licensed wholesalers the control they now exercise over sea produce after it has been landed. (f) MINING Production of light and heavy crude oil from Seria field by The British Malayan Petroleum Company Limited amounted in 1955 to approximately 38J million barrels, about four million barrels more than in 1954. This increase was attained as a result of (a) improved pro¬ duction techniques resulting from a fuller knowledge of the oilfield’s reservoir conditions and (b) the bringing into production of a larger number of wells, resulting from an appreciable speed-up in drilling operations. Drilling operations involved the making of 209,900 feet of hole within the Seria field (compared with 168,000 feet in 1954), and as a result 34 new oilwells were completed, all of them producers. By the end of 1955 there were 292 wells in production at Seria: but it should be understood that this total fluctuates almost daily, as the older wells are subject to closure for main¬ tenance work at sometimes frequent intervals. The oil produced at Seria is of two types: a light, waxy oil of specific gravity 0.83, and a heavy, non-waxy oil of 0.95 specific
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image