Today I traveled with Michael, a tour guide for for a small local travel company ( info@travelhub.com.bn ). I signed up for one of their very niche tours – sightseeing the part of Brunei that produces all of its oil and natural gas under the control of Brunei LNG.
Travel Hub offers a variety of day and multi day sightseeing tours within Brunei. This particular tour may not appeal to a lot of people but oil and gas are what drive Brunei’s economy and I wanted to see the oilfields for myself.
This part of Brunei is integral to the prosperity of the country. All of their O&G production fall under this one company owned by the government of the Royal Sultan, Shell Oil Company and Mitsubishi Corporation. A long jetty extends 4.5 kilometers into the south China Sea and carries all the oil and gas to supply ships which then deliver the fuel to northern Asian countries such as Japan and Korea. Brunei only uses 7.5% of the total production. 80% of the mined reserves are located offshore. The “Billionth Barrel Monument” was a tribute to just how much oil has been taken out of this region – and that monument dates from years ago!
We also visited an aquaculture farm which appeared to be on its last legs. The road in was under water in places and nearly all the water pens were empty. We arrived to find an shirtless old man shredding about 20 loaves of bread to feed the fish. After a few minutes he grunted something and then slumped over. I thought he died. A few minutes later he sprang back to life and started shredding more bread.
The entire population of this country is about 430,000 people with most of the population living near the capital city, Bandar seri Begewan. As a result much of the country is inhabited and we drove through miles of bright green jungle foliage. Tomorrow I get to explore some of this jungle!
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