Reading through G.C. Harper’s fantastic account of Seria in its early years as an oil town, it’s striking just how much the landscape has changed from what was basically a mangrove swamp.
Seria’s original name, Padang Berawa (“padang” means field and “berawa” is some sort of pigeon according to The Daily Brunei Resources), eventually fell into disuse and the town became known as Seria, adopting the name of the nearby Sungai Seria (Seria River). While the reason behind this change remains unknown, it seems suggestive of the formative role that Sungai Seria may have played in the modernization of the town.
Before Seria became an oil town, Harper writes,
“With the exception of the river banks and a strip of sand along the sea, the whole Padang Berawa is a swamp. Walking here means really climbing and jumping over naked roots, and struggling and cutting through air roots of mangroves of more than man’s height. With every step the foot is sinking into the loose roots and decaying wood, and about every tenth step one breaks in altogether, and is covered by mud over the knees.”
“During the rainy season, and especially after a very heavy rainfall, the whole of the Padang Berawa area is submerged by water and can be crossed on bridges only.”
“One of the more unpleasant aspects of working (or even living) in Seria, as recently as the late 50’s, was the possibility of a chance meeting, unexpectedly and unarmed, with a bad-tempered crocodile.”
G. C. Harper, The Discovery and Development of the Seria Oilfield (1975)
It is striking just how much the mangrove swamp and its inhabitants ruled over the area that it seems unthinkable that people now work, live in and even visit Seria just for fun.
Fast forward a few decades later, Frans Welman, a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker from The Netherlands came to visit the town and observed just how much the swampy area had changed:
“On the beautiful but deserted beach I looked at the pumps from a vantage point and pictured the workers who drilled and installed these devices […] In backlight I photographed the pipes, valves, wells like it was a forest of oil.”
Frans Welman, Borneo Trilogy: Book 3, Volume 1 (2013)
The mangrove swamp has now been dethroned and in its place is a “forest of oil”. It’s easy to imagine the pump jacks or “nodding donkeys” taking the place of trees, especially since many of them have been painted a forest-green shade.
This view of Seria – the superimposition of oil over the natural landscape – had also been articulated previously by fictional character Ahmad in prolific Bruneian writer Muslim Burmat’s oil novel, Puncak Pertama (First Peak) in 1988.
“Everywhere on the beach, pipelines were laid where liquid gas would eventually flow and be burned at the end, pump jacks were pumping up and down on the coastline. Pipelines were becoming longer and many were laid here and there, dividing the small town that was becoming more and more populated. Ahmad watched these rapid new developments with amazement and pride. He was proud that his country was becoming more prosperous and more jobs were becoming available, which meant that his labour was still needed.”
Muslim Burmat, Puncak Pertama (1988) [my own translation]
From mangrove swamp to oil town in the space of a few decades.
Ahmad’s point of view underscores the overtaking of the natural landscape by pipelines and pump jacks. They noticeably seem to come alive in the passage as they inhabit Seria and turn it into a petroscape.
Reflecting on the differences between the pre- and post-oil landscapes of Seria, it reminds me of Rob Nixon’s observation:
“[…] imposed official landscapes typically discount spiritualized vernacular landscapes, severing webs of accumulated cultural meaning and treating the landscape as if it were uninhabited by the living, the unborn, and the animate deceased.”
Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011)
Driving through Seria now or even reading contemporary descriptions of the town, it’s difficult to see it as having once been a place full of life and human-nonhuman encounters. The current petroscape is dominated by highly guarded – some quite hidden – oil and gas infrastructure, including expat housing (covered quite well by strategically planted trees), recreational clubs and corporate headquarters. The industrial area of Sungai Bera, which is populated by many of the offices of oil and gas-related companies and contractors, is situated in an isolated area some 15 minutes away from the Seria town centre.
In contrast, the Seria Energy Lab, which is labeled a “science centre” aimed at educating young school children about the oil-and-gas industry, features prominently as one drives through Seria (and here one thinks of petroaesthetics and the careful curation of oil’s public face. One can even start to think about the concept of energy literacy and how we come to know and learn about oil.)
Harper’s valuable and entertaining account of the early years of the oil-and-gas industry in Seria are rich with not only stories of human-nonhuman interactions but also stories of the more-than-human. I’m particularly struck by the descriptions of rivers as alive and agentic:
“[A] particular menace over the years has been the liability of the rivers flowing through the area to change their courses. The Sungai Bera has been particularly prone to do this. The records show that on a number of occasions during heavy floods the river switched its course and turbulent waters began swirling away the foundations of producing wells.”
G. C. Harper, The Discovery and Development of the Seria Oilfield (1975)
It’s very rarely nowadays that we hear anything about the rivers in Seria, much less descriptions of them as being a “menace” or even “amusing”:
“It is hard to believe that an oil well could be considered as amusing, but S-205 has been described as the onshore well that sought promotion to a marine well. Actually S-205 took no active part, the real culprit was the Sungai Seria. S-205 was at the mouth of the river and sometimes stood on the eastern bank, sometimes on the western bank and occasionally plumb in the middle of Sungai Seria. The well pulling teams learned to accept the fact that when they were sent to attend to S-205 they might find it in any of its three positions, especially if their visit was during the monsoon season.”
G.C. Harper, The Discovery and Development of the Seria Oilfield (1975)
To see Seria from the historical vantage point of oil and not merely a political or economic one is indeed to see it anew. Emerging out of this approach are multispecies stories (where are the crocodiles now?), folk stories (why did the Padang Berawa name become replaced with Seria?), diasporic stories (where were the workers who drilled and installed the nodding donkeys from?), colonial and neocolonial (petrocolonial?) stories and so much more.
It’s both intriguing and horrifying how some stories, people, and histories become marginalized or erased in official, popular and everyday discourse. Who and what are the agents, systems, ideologies, institutions, infrastructures and practices that enable such erasures?
While these questions have been addressed by numerous scholars before me, I aim to approach them from a cultural and societal standpoint, paying attention to the local particularities like local institutions, policies, ideologies and practices that have shaped our thinking towards energy and the environment. Stay tuned for those insights as I continue my research and thinking!
Petro-Ambiguity: Environment, Energy, Culture 
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