PALEMBANG, Indonesia — A law enforcement crackdown against widespread opportunist oil extraction has shuttered at least 95 illegal wells following a spate of deaths in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province, police said. “I appeal to the people still working in this illegal supply chain to consciously change their professions,” South Sumatra police chief Albertus Rachmad Wibowo said in a statement. On June 27, a fire broke out at an oil well in Sungai Lilin, a subdistrict on Sumatra’s arterial highway between the cities of Jambi and Palembang. Police said deliberate damage to an oil pipe there to enable illegal extraction caused an oil leak, which culminated in a blast that killed four people. Less than a month later, another fire in the early hours of July 21 in Sungai Lilin killed a local resident. Police in South Sumatra have arrested and charged at least two people in connection with the June explosion. A string of other fires and explosions have occurred at illegal oil refineries and storage sites since the start of the year. Blasts are often reported at the estimated 10,000 illegal oil wells located in Musi Banyuasin, just one district of Indonesia’s Sumatra island. (Sumatra is home to more than 150 districts and cities; Musi Banyuasin encompasses Sungai Lilin.) Previous incidents included fires at illegal oil refineries and storage warehouses in the Musi Banyuasin subdistricts of Babat Toman, Keluang and Sanga Desa, leading to multiple arrests. In response to the string of accidents, the acting governor of South Sumatra,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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