Chevron in Indonesia - An Alternative 2009 Annual Report

Hariansyah Usman and Pius Ginting, WALHI - Friends of the Earth Indonesia

“Let me die here. There is no use for me to stay alive. Chevron does not care about my land. The company is very cruel.”

- Words yelled by Mr Darmiadi in an attempted suicide
from a Chevron electricity tower, September 14, 2009.[333]

ON SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2009, MR. DARMIADI climbed atop a Chevron high voltage electricity tower in Pematang Pudu. Darmiadi, age 37, is a local sand miner and father of two. He was unable to work on his land because, he contended, it had been contaminated by Chevron’s oil. Two months earlier, Darmiadi sent a letter to Chevron asking the company to take responsibility. The company denied his request, denied responsibility, and further argued that because Chevron owned part of his land, Darmiadi should not be sand mining on the land anyway.[334] Twenty-one days later, Darmiadi sought to commit suicide from atop Chevron’s tower. Only the supportive words of neighbors brought him down safely.

Chevron has been in Indonesia for more than 85 years. It began exploring for oil here in 1924 as Standard Oil of California. Its oil production began in 1952. Chevron remained active in Indonesia throughout the infamously brutal and repressive decades of the Suharto dictatorship (1965-1998). The majority of Chevron’s oil production has, and continues to, take place in the Riau province in the center of the Sumatra Island, where it operates four onshore blocks, the largest of which, the Duri field, is one of the largest energy sources in the world.[335]

Today, Chevron, through its Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI) subsidiary (formerly Caltex Pacific Indonesia), is Indonesia’s largest oil producer, with daily oil production averaging around 243,000 barrels of oil a day, about half of Indonesia’s total oil output. Chevron’s Indonesian operations include oil, natural gas and geothermal power-generation.

History of Repression and Resistance

If the average price of the crude oil from 1952-2008 were $20 per barrel, it would mean that Chevron’s Riau production has yielded some $220 billion. The Riau Economic Observer has found that, “If oil and gas companies indeed brought a good impact on the economy for local inhabitants, it should have affected Riau inhabitants 30 years ago. However, statistical data show that Riau was categorized the second most disadvantaged province in Indonesia in the 1980s.”[336]

Instead of wealth generation, Chevron’s Riau production has been plagued by economic injustice, environmental destruction, and the dislocation and disenfranchisement of indigenous populations. As a result, citizen resistance to Chevron has been a constant of life in Riau, often taking the form of massive protests against the company, with protestors at times numbering in the tens of thousands.

Chevron has employed brutal measures to quiet protests, including utilizing Indonesia’s notorious security services, bringing charges of human rights abuse, violence and intimidation.[337] For example, on January 27, 2000, Chevron paid the special Indonesia security force BRIMOB to overcome a series of actions and protests over land disputes and employment.[338] The BRIMOB are well-known for extreme human rights violations, including kidnapping, rape, torture, indiscriminate violence and murder.[339] As a result of the brutality of BRIMOB, 15 people involved in the protests against Chevron were wounded and five were hospitalized.[340]

Sakai Tribe and Its River

Ditch to the Batang Pudu river. The surrounding land
is contaminated, but Chevron covered it with sand
so the land looks good.

“Our last fort defense is the Batang Pudu river. It is like a war, if our last fort defense is ruined, then it will become the end of the world for us. The remaining option is only death or never ending misery that we shall take.” - Bathin Musa, the head of Sakai Tribe at Petani Village, Bengkalis.[341]

The Sakai people are one of several Indigenous peoples in the Riau province. Other Indigenous communities include the Bonai, Talang Mamak, Laut, Akit and Hutan. The community life of the Sakai includes living on products of the forest, keeping livestock, fishing and planting gardens.[342]

The Sakai tribe was the original owner of the land on which Chevron’s oil and gas was found.[343] The Sakai owned the Minas, Belutu, Tingaran, Sinangan, Semunai, Panaso and Borumban areas of land. “Almost all the land at CPI was indeed our ulayat (customary) land, where we went for hunting and farming... The land acquisition by Caltex came from some Sakai people who sold their land, or came from land grabbing with very low compensation or even no compensation at all. From hundreds of thousands of hectare acres, we now only have five thousand hectare acres left.”[344]

Water and Land Contamination

The inhabitants of Riau have been plagued by contamination of their land and water by Chevron’s oil, making traditional methods of subsistence impossible and causing dire health effects.

In 1993, the villagers of Sungai Limau together with WALHI-Riau charged Chevron with contaminating the Siak and Limau Rivers. In a letter to the government and Caltex, they wrote:

The Sungai Limau villagers reported problems almost identical to those cited by the Mempura villagers. Oil is often visible in and around the rivers, and the rivers’ fish population has declined so much that they can no longer fish in them. A number of villagers have contracted rashes, diarrhea and other sicknesses as a result of the oil pollution.[345]

The abuse was so great that the citizens were willing to face the enormous risk of raising such complaints during the Suharto dictatorship, a time when protest, or resistance of any kind against the government or a corporation, brought substantial repression, even death. While Chevron ultimately agreed to give compensation to villagers, it was far below the villagers’ demands.[346]

Chevron's hazardous and poisonous waste disposal.
The study shown revealed destruction of the ecosystem
caused by ongoing contamination.

In 2007, people in Batang Pudu village found hidden pipes around Chevron’s Central Mud Treating Facility (CMTF) at Arak Field. They witnessesed and smelled black water coming out from the pipe to Batang Pudu river. At the upper edge of the river, there was also black mud sediment from Chevron’s oil drilling. In January 2008, Mr. Atin, a fisherman from the Sakai tribe in Bengkalis Riau died after coughing blood for several months. He was the second fisherman to die in the village with these symptoms. The suspicion grew at the community that the death was caused by the polluted river where the fishermen work everyday, a river they believe to be contaminated by toxic waste from Chevron.

In response, the Sakai people at Pematang Pudu, together with WALHI, called on the local government to fix the situation, cite Chevron for the environmental damage, and investigate the site. The subsequent investigation identified four illegal toxic waste disposals.[347] Based on the sample of waste tested by an expert from the Agriculture University in Bogor West Java (IPB), there was evidence of environmental pollution at Pematang Pudu, Mandau sub district. The concentration of chemical material in the ditch was above the acceptable levels, especially for the chlorine and sulfate.[348]

The agency of environmental impact analysis (Bapedal Riau) found Chevron guilty.[349] Furthermore, the environmental impact analysis report released by BPK RI (The Audit Board of The Republic Indonesia) also found and highlighted violations of the environmental quality standard stipulated by government.[350] However, no action has been taken by either the government or Chevron to right this situation.

What Chevron Says

Chevron has rejected the accusations from the Sakai community. It claims to be the most progressive company in terms of preserving the environment and public health. The Manager of Communications and Media Relations, Hanafi Kadir, says that Chevron handles its waste very carefully, contracting its waste management to another company (PT Karya Lestari Perkasa). Regarding the skin diseases suffered by the local community at Tonggak Delapan village, Hanafi Kadir also refuses the community’s allegation that the disease is caused by polluted air from Chevron.[351]

In 2009, the Indonesian government issued a new environmental protection and management regulation. Rather than comply with the regulation, Chevron fought back. Chevron Senior Vice President of Sumatra Operations Support, A. Hamid Batubara, expressed particular concern over the new regulation’s air and water pollution controls, saying that implementation would have a deleterious effect on Chevron’s production totals.”[352] In response to Chevron’s protests, the Minister of Energy and Mineral resources, Darwin Zahedy Saleh, seems prepared to weaken the law.[353] The government also proposed delaying the new law.[354]

The Struggle Continues

Chevron’s great influence over the Indonesian government continues to this day. Even including forcing it to “overlook” its own regulations, to the great detriment of local communities, and even local governments.

The Sakai tribe’s demand is simple. They want environmental restoration and compensation for their loss of income from the polluted river. They do not want money, they want land on which to earn their own living. But, to date, there has been no significant response by Chevron to the peoples’ demands.

WALHI, together with other networks and the local communities, will continue to end the environment, social and economic destruction in Riau, and in other provinces in Indonesia.


333 “Darmiadi Nekad Panjat Tower Listrik Chevron,” Tribun Pekanbaru, 14 Sept. 2009.
334 Ibid.
335 Chevron Corp., “Indonesia Fact Sheet,” Mar. 2010.
336 Umi Kalsum, “Chevron Produces 11 Billion Barrels of Oil,” RABU, February 18, 2009, VIVAnews.
337 Oil Watch. Chevron: the right hand of empire (2006) 80–81.
338 Ibid. at 81.
339 East Timor and Indonesian Action Network, “Background on Kopassus and Brimob,” 2008; Human Rights Watch, Indonesia: Out of Sight: Endemic Abuse and Impunity in Papua’s Central Highlands, Vol. 19, No. 10(C), July 2007.
340 Oil Watch (2006) at 80–81.
341 Derita Anak Sakai Interview with Bathin Musa, head of Sakai tribe.
342 Parsudi Suparlan, Orang Sakai di Riau: Masyarakat terasing dalam masyarakat Indonesia, (Yayasan Obor, 1995) 93.
343 Moszkowski, 1911.
344 Ahmad Arif and Agnes Rita Sulistywati, “Sayap Patah Para Sakai,” Kompas, 24 Apr. 2007.
345 Robert Weissman, “Caltex Corporate Colony: How an oil consortium pollutes Indonesia,” Multinational Monitor 1993, 15(11).
346 Ibid.
347 Riau Mandiri, “PT KLP Terbukti Cemari Lingkungan,” Posted on “Dari Atas” atau “Dari Bawah”: How an Oil Consortium Pollutes Indonesia Blog, 29 June 2007.
348 Ibid.
349 Radio Nederland Wereldomroep. “Chevron Dituduh Cemari Sungai di Riau,” 28 Feb. 2008.
350 BPK RI (The Audit Board of The Republic Indonesia). “The environmental impact analysis report”. August 2008.
351 “Chevron sangat komit dengan pencemaran lingkungan,” Riau Online, 3 June 2007.
352 Rudy Ariffianto, “UU lingkungan tekan produksi Chevron,” Bisnis Indonesia, 27 Feb. 2010.
353 Ibid.
354 “Government requests delay on new environment law,” Tempo Interaktif, 25 Feb. 2010.

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