Year: 1975
Type: article
Abstract: In 1883 a Dutch planter, A. J. Zijlker, was overtaken by a tropical storm while traveling on the island of Sumatra. Sheltering in a tobacco shed, he witnessed a watchman light a fire from wet twigs using a bamboo torch. He asked about the burning quality of the torch and the next day was taken to a small pond filled with a dark liquid. Soon after, Zijlker drilled the now-famous Telega Tila oil well in North Sumatra, and from its precarious derrick Royal Dutch Shell's global empire eventually grew. Zijlker's venture and others like it launched the modern petroleum industry in Southeast Asia and linked the region's resources to the energy markets of the world. Today, in a decade bullied by energy problems, Southeast Asia is a growing source of oil and gas for the industrial markets of the world. Revenues from those markets are, in turn, increasingly influential in defining wealth and power within the region.
Author: Michael Morrow
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2320536848