Three firms from Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are cooperating to build a pipeline worth USD7 billion to transport crude oil across the Malay Peninsula, bypassing the busy Straits of Malacca. The chairman of Trans-Peninsula Petroleum expects the pipeline to divert 20% of oil tankers traffic off the Straits of Malacca.
“The savings in using our pipeline to the oil producers, to oil traders, is enough to even pay for one month of storage,” said chairman of Trans-Peninsula Petroleum Sdn Bhd (Transpen), Mohd Kamil Sulaiman.
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Mohd Kamil said the pipeline would help ease congestion in the Straits of Malacca where out of 60,000 vessels that transit the straits, 30 percent were oil tankers.
He said the pipeline would divert about 20 percent of the oil tankers. [Transpen’s US$7 Bln-pipeline To Cut Down Time Taken To Transport Oil. Bernama. May 29 2007]
While the project is huge, this is not the first time northern Malay Peninsula becomes a land bridge facilitating international trade. Not in such gigantic scale of course but still, in my humble opinion, far more significant.
The third century of the common era was a period of economic boom in Southeast Asia. The boom was caused by a civil war in China; the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The conflict threatened the reliability of the Silk Road, the artery of international trade and soon, the route between China and Rome became unsafe for passage.
Like water, trade seeks the path of least resistance. The unique circumstances encouraged the development of sea routes that ran through Southeast Asia. This is the impetus of the formation of many kingdoms in this region during this period. Three of the kingdoms were Dungsun, Pan Pan and Langkasuka. Another one, although not located on the Malay Peninsula but closely related to the history of the three Southeast Asia kingdoms was Funan.
Funan was a civilization that existed at the mouth of river Mekong. More importantly, it was the gate to southern China which was controlled by the kingdom of Wu. It is probably safe to claim that almost all goods originated or going to southern China went through Funan. Relating to the topic at hand, the three kingdoms at one time or another came under the influence of Funan.
To or fro Funan, depending on the flow of trade, goods would pass through Dungsun, Pan Pan, Langkasuka or by circumventing the Malay Peninsula. There may be other routes but there four are the major ones.
Dungsun was a kingdom located near the Isthmus of Kra. Its strategic location allowed it to connect the Bay of Bengal and the Bay of Siam. Apart from that, not much is known about it and this makes it so mysterious.
South of Dungsun was Pan Pan, centered around the cities of Ligor or Chaiya. It is worth remembering that Chaiya was the regional capital of the Malay empire of Srivijaya later in history. While that is clear, I find Pan Pan a little bit confusing though. Some called Pan Pan as Tambralinga while others recognized Tambralinga as Ligor. Nevertheless, Pan Pan accommodated international trade.
Even farther south was the kingdom of Langkasuka that roughly covered the old Malay kingdoms of Pattani as well as Old Kedah and its surrounding. Over land, goods traveled between Singora and Kedah or Pattani and Kedah. The Pattani-Kedah route in particular ran along Muda River in Kedah and Pattani River on the other side of the Peninsula. Anyway, as mentioned earlier, Funan exerted influence over Langkasuka but among three kingdoms, Langkasuka was the farthest from Funan and hence, Funanese controlled over it was probably the weakest.
About four centuries later, both Pan Pan and Langkasuka were absorbed by Srivijaya. Despite the presence of a new master, these two kingdoms still played the role they played back in the second century. Langkasuka specifically reached its peak between the 7th and the 10th century, coinciding with the Srivijayan golden age. The era made Kedah a very busy port. The archaeologically rich Bujang Valley provides some proofs of the prosperity Kedah once enjoyed.
So, when you ever passby that crude oil pipeline will connect Kedah and Kelantan around 2014, just remember that the idea of trade cutting through the Malay Peninsula went as far back as about 1800 years ago. Beyond Malacca, if I might add.