A Blind Eye to Fuel Theft

In North Jakarta there is a racket going on daily. Not drugs, not gambling, not prostitution (although all three do occur there), this one is fuel theft and as scams go this one is off pretty epic proportions.

I watched one kid as he was carefully preparing to draw off some petrol from a stationary tanker when he realized he had the wrong truck: The tank was still full.

A number of men approached, armed with plastic containers. The one leading the way carried a hose and started filling the containers. The group left with five plastic containers holding 100 litres of petrol in total.

An old woman, who watched from the side of the road, seemed satisfied with the outcome and nodded to the driver. The truck proceeded on its way and the driver no doubt would receive his share of the profit later.

After making a delivery and on the way back to the fuel depot, trucks stop some way off to allow the "draining” of the residual load before refilling for another drop. Some individuals , as described above are more blatant and don’t consider draining to be profitable.

Instead they aim for the trucks which are full and take what they want with the full knowledge of the driver. Incidentally, smoking a cigarette while undertaking the “blag” seems to be an acceptable, if not mandatory part of the process.

While children as young as 10 years old chase after speeding trucks for a trickle of fuel, the adults collect fuel the easy way and sell it at street-side stalls. It is a practice that has been going on for decades.

The authorities, it seems, would rather pretend that things that are out of their control, like fuel theft, are not happening. Pertamina acknowledge this problem and appear to consider the practice as part of their operational losses.

The figure is considered very small, up to 2 % of the total load.

Funny, I would consider 2% to be quite a substantial loss as it is possible to eliminate the practice. But then again, as both Pertamina employees and the local “blind eye of the law” both benefit, there seems to be no reason to upset the “status quo”.

A small fuel truck carries 1,000 litres, (equal to 20 nicked litres) while the largest one has the capacity to carry almost 25,000 litres (a whacking 500 nicked litres if you can get away with it). On my way backwards and forwards to work, there are many bottlenecks (Tolls predominately) where the traffic slows to a complete standstill.

The other favourite is for gangs to “sidle” up to trucks stuck in these jams, undo the petrol cap and start siphoning. The victims here are not Oil Company vehicles, instead they are private companies and individuals who have already paid for the diesel in their tanks.

It does not take long before the containers are filled and the stolen fuel carted off for sale elsewhere.

Once again, Indonesians prove that when it comes to thievery, they are masters and never miss a potential score!

Now if only this ingenuity could be harnessed into more socially acceptable efforts I am sure that this country would be subtly different.