Caltex suffers US$240,000 from fire incident

Oil and gas firm PT Caltex Indonesia suffers around US$240,000 after four of its oil wells (not five as had been reported earlier) were torched by a group of local farmers on Monday afternoon, according to company public relations officer Poedyo Oetomo.

Peodyo was quoted as saying by the Detikcom online that the company had to replace four-rotor pump and lose around 800-1,000 barrel of oil.

Farmers of the Batang village in the Bengkalis district, Riau, who are grouped in the Sawit Permai farming group torched the Caltex oil wells in a protest over land compensation, which was given to the other farming group called the Rantau Bais Terpadu group.

The former group claims that the compensation should have been given to them because the land acquired by Caltex was theirs. But Poedyo said that the latter group also claimed the same land and the local court decided Caltex to pay the latter group some Rp 5 billion (US$1=Rp 9,100) in compensation.

The protesting farmers first collected dry timber, piled them up near the wells and set up fire.

Poedyo said that the villagers tried to burn the fifth well but the local police managed to prevent them from doing so. (*)