Bamboo rig and manual labor: how local people mine oil in Myanmar

Myanmar is a small state in Southeast Asia, which is rich in natural resources, but most of them are not used in any way. The fact is that for a long time the country had a military regime that prevented the intervention of foreign companies capable of developing the oil and gas industry. And the local government did not develop enough deposits. So everything turned out to be in the hands of local residents: thousands of people earn a living by manually producing oil.

A century ago in the USA there was a gold rush. In Myanmar, the situation is similar: for pieces of land there are constant confrontations, comes to stabbing, to buy a plot is expensive. However, if you have a piece of land where you can pump oil, you can make very good money. Some drillers per day pump up to three hundred barrels of oil from the bowels of the earth, the cost of which is estimated at about 3 thousand dollars. This is just crazy money for a small Asian country. Crude oil is sold to local refineries.

However, this work is very complicated, and improvised means are used. To drill a well, workers install bamboo and log posts. They spend hours pushing a makeshift drill into the ground. Oil is located at a depth of about 12 meters, when the bamboo plant reaches the target, oil is collected manually.

However, you can’t just choose your favorite site and start working on it. First you need to buy land, and its price is very high - about 4 thousand dollars per acre. Oil refineries sell land, but permission to buy must also be knocked out. Often, the process is accompanied by bribery. When the land is finally bought, the workers take over the manual production of oil. Later, a generator and an engine may appear on the site.

Often, Burmese groups and buy a site together. They live right here, in makeshift tents, sometimes with whole families. It’s easier: life and work merged together. And often all family members work at the well.

However, manual wells are unlikely to function for long. The military regime fell eight years ago, and Myanmar is open to foreign investors. Soon all of them will be absorbed by global corporations. And it is unlikely that the interests of the workers will be taken into account here.