How toxic century-old oil wells trap thousands of workers in Java
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00:00These oil wells are stuck in the past.
00:10And for over 100 years now.
00:14This has been the most lucrative job
00:16in this remote part of Indonesia,
00:19where the land has been ruined by toxic leaks.
00:26Workers risk their lives to extract the little that's left.
00:30But they don't even own that oil.
00:42They're forced to sell to the state company,
00:45which locals say barely pays them enough to get by.
00:52So why do these toxic old wells still exist?
00:57And how did thousands of people end up trapped
01:01working in them?
01:11Pani learned to extract oil when he was just 19.
01:16Now he is teaching his nephew.
01:18Many of the 700 oil wells near his village in East Java
01:30were built by the Dutch in the late 1800s.
01:37Nowadays, locals own most of them,
01:40but only about 200 still work.
01:42Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
01:46Pani always prays with his colleagues
01:48before starting his day.
02:05The basic tools they rely on are improvised and rustic.
02:13Like this engine they've removed from an old dump truck.
02:26They have to step on gas and brake pedals
02:28to dip and lift this pipe that goes in.
02:30It's called a baler.
02:32It has little holes in the side to let oil in and out.
02:40They need enough rope to lower the baler
02:42all the way down into the oil reserve.
02:48At this location, the crude is found about 1,000 tons.
02:53The crude is used to extract oil from the wells
02:56that are in the oil reserve.
03:00The baler is located about 1,000 feet below,
03:04a depth almost equal to the height
03:06of Indonesia's tallest building.
03:10When the baler hits the bottom,
03:12the holes open up inside, letting oil in.
03:15Then when the rope starts tugging up,
03:18the holes close, trapping the oil inside the tube.
03:23Pani uses this heavy iron rod to guide the baler down.
03:30This is how accidents happen.
03:42The whole process is messy.
03:47Pani says he sometimes wears a mask to protect himself
03:50from the liquid that sprays out.
03:56But what he fears most is a possible explosion.
04:01The equipment can overheat and catch fire.
04:04With all this oil around,
04:06an open flame can quickly spark an inferno.
04:10In June, a fire at another well in Sumatra
04:13killed four workers.
04:17It's also hard to maintain these wells over time.
04:21They're too narrow and far too deep
04:24for people to crawl in and fix from inside.
04:31It's hard to fix the pipe inside.
04:36So we have to build a new one on the side.
04:44Sometimes mud clogs up the well
04:47and prevents the baler from reaching the oil.
04:51The extracted oil runs off into these pools.
05:00In its crude form, it's mixed with mud and water.
05:04The oil floats to the top in a matter of minutes
05:07and workers scoop it out.
05:11Pani's nephew, Joko Mawar,
05:13is the only one who can do it.
05:20His wife, Juliana, helps.
05:29They use a vacuum to transfer the oil onto the car.
05:35About 200 years ago, before these oil wells existed,
05:39crude naturally oozed out of the ground here.
05:42Locals gathered small amounts to light lamps
05:45and make medicine.
05:47In 1887, the Dutch, who colonized Indonesia,
05:51set up a large-scale drilling operation.
05:54Their oil company, Royal Dutch,
05:56managed many wells and refineries in East Java
06:00and brought in workers who were paid low wages
06:03to help work for them.
06:06As demand for oil boomed around the world,
06:09drilling in Indonesia expanded too.
06:12And this land became unrecognizable.
06:16The Dutch left after Indonesia gained independence in 1945.
06:22But the oil that had leaked from the wells
06:25had already polluted the surrounding earth and water,
06:29making farming, the work that had sustained locals
06:32long before these wells existed, much harder.
06:36Extracting oil became the most lucrative work,
06:40but there wasn't nearly as much as before.
06:43When Pani started this job in 2004,
06:46they could draw up to 900 gallons from this well in a day.
06:51Now it takes him one week to get 55 gallons.
06:55There's more underground,
06:57but the well is too shallow to reach it.
07:00And Pani doesn't have the machinery to drill deeper.
07:05Even though workers own the land,
07:07the state-owned company, Pertamina,
07:09possesses the right to all the oil underground.
07:12So, by law, workers have to sell their oil to the company
07:16through a local government enterprise.
07:19But they often make more money
07:21selling it to off-the-radar refineries instead,
07:24where Pani can make two times as much
07:27than the state-owned Pertamina.
07:30Latest estimates from 2014
07:32found that the state company
07:34was losing nearly $11 million annually
07:37to workers who sell their oil independently.
07:44Even after selling on the black market,
07:46workers still only make about $12 a week,
07:51which is not a lot of money.
07:54Which is not a lot, even in this part of Indonesia.
07:58That's why most of the workers bring lunch from home
08:01and share it with the others.
08:14Pani pays his nephew, Joko,
08:16an additional $6 weekly
08:18to drive the oil to the refineries.
08:21That's become its own profession.
08:52Joko has been at it for 16 years now.
09:00He used to make around 10 trips a day,
09:03each for a different well owner.
09:05But that's dropped down to just four,
09:08or five on a busy day.
09:11Pani's neighbor, Jai Nuri, processes the oil
09:14from the primary well
09:16and sells it to the nearby refineries.
09:36The combined oil price at the refineries
09:38has risen drastically.
09:41oil at this artisanal refinery, using traditional techniques.
09:56He works 13-hour days, carrying 20-pound containers filled with crude up and down these hills.
10:09He dumps them into these 60-gallon drums.
10:29First, Jainuri lights this underground furnace.
10:40He'll use it to heat the crude in this drum.
10:43He fills it halfway to give it space to boil.
10:47It has to reach at least 570 degrees Fahrenheit before it starts evaporating, which is key
10:54to refining it.
10:56The vapor comes up through these pipes, which are cooled with water.
11:01That turns the vapor back into a liquid.
11:18They bring that refined fuel to the boiler and heat it once more, until it evaporates
11:24back through these pipes.
11:26Jainuri repeats this process three or four times to get different types of fuel, like
11:32gasoline and diesel.
11:48All day long, workers here are breathing these fumes, a combination of nitrogen, methane,
11:55and carbon monoxide, which can cause cancer and brain damage.
12:00And if the gases get trapped underground, everything could explode.
12:14And an entire day's work only fetches about one drum of diesel.
12:19That's about enough to fill a car three times.
12:27Refineries are also required to sell their oil to Pertamina, but many sell at small black
12:32markets like this one.
12:40Locals buy oil for $2.27 per gallon.
12:44That's double what Pertamina would pay for it, although the price fluctuates based on
12:49global oil prices.
12:52The quality of the artisanal oil is inferior, so locals mostly use it to fuel the engines
12:57in their wells.
12:59Some also use it in their cars, because the nearest gas station is 60 miles away.
13:06That trip would cost them more in gas than they make in a day.
13:11Indonesia has enough oil reserves underground to power the entire country for at least four
13:17years.
13:18Still, it imports about half of the oil it consumes.
13:23And these artisanal workers aren't allowed to dig new wells on their own land.
13:29They could get all their oil extraction rights revoked.
13:32Instead, they have to allow large companies to drill on their property, a law the country
13:38passed in 2001 to boost foreign investment and ramp up oil drilling.
13:44That year, ExxonMobil discovered an oil field nearby and soon signed on to help Pertamina
13:51develop it, buying out 3,000 small landowners first.
13:57The plant started extracting in 2008 and now produces about 200,000 barrels annually, about
14:05a quarter of the country's oil output.
14:08But locals say what they really need from the government is funding for better machinery
14:15so they can develop their fields themselves.
14:30So workers find ways to make do on their own, because they say they have to.
14:36They keep digging more wells like these, to tap as many shallow reserves as they can.
14:41According to some estimates, output from illegally dug wells is outpacing production at the legal
15:08ones by about 10 barrels a day.
15:15Meanwhile, locals feel trapped in work that's damaged their land, and now seems like their
15:22only option for a stable income.
15:38Pani's family grew mangoes here for generations, but for the last few years, his crops have
16:01kept dying.
16:15Still, he's grateful for every drop of oil he can get, and that it's made it possible
16:21for his daughter to go to school and to have a better life than he did.