Brooketon Colliery, formerly known as Muara Coal Mine, was one of the underground coal mines in

Brunei Brunei, officially Brunei Darussalam, is a country in Southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, with ...

Location

The Brooketon Colliery is located in Serasa. It is located to the north of the roundabout where Jalan Muara meets the Muara–Tutong Highway about one and a half miles away from Muara Town centre.

History

Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

was first reported in Brunei Darussalam near Muara as early as 1837.
from ''The Geology and Hydrocarbon Resources of Negara Brunei Darussalam'' retrieved 07-06-12 in Serai Pimping. The Muara coalmine was first mined commercially in 1883, when William Cowie (merchant), William Cowie was given the concession rights to mine the coal in exchange for $1,200 per year.Before the Oil, it was Coal
Brunei Times 14-04-2007 However, Cowie later sold his rights to

Rajah Raja (; from , IAST ') is a noble or royal Sanskrit title historically used by some Indian rulers and monarchs and highest-ranking nobles. The title was historically used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The title has a long ...

Charles Brooke and the Rajah renamed the mine Brooketon (Brooke Town). Between 1889 and 1924, it was operated by the

Sarawak Sarawak ( , ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. It is the largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia. Sarawak is located in East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is ...

government of Rajah Charles Brooke. Annual

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is a ...

s of coal varied between 10,000 and 25,000

ton Ton is any of several units of measure of mass, volume or force. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. As a unit of mass, ''ton'' can mean: * the '' long ton'', which is * the ''tonne'', also called the ''metric ...

s annually and in those 33 years of operation, more than 650,000 tons were exported. At first it was

opencast Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ro ...

until it became harder and

underground mining Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a la ...

was introduced. Brooketon Colliery was strategic as it was very near to Muara where then and now there is a safe deep-water anchorage to which the mine was connected via rail. During the time the mine was in operation, there was a wooden rail line that connected Brooketon which is about one and a half mile away from Muara. The rail line is no longer in place. Politically too, even though he only had economic rights, Brooke became the de facto ruler of the area. The mine employed hundreds of miners and that required him to introduce a police force, post office and roads transforming Muara into an

extraterritorial In international law, extraterritoriality or exterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdict ...

settlement an extension of

. It was not until 1921 that Muara was "returned" to

. It closed down in 1924 because of heavy financial losses caused by continuously decreasing coal prices in the world

economic recession An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

Current Issues

All that remains of the mine today is an overgrown railway, locomotives, mine entrances and an abandoned

Morris Minor The Morris Minor is an economy car produced by British marque Morris Motors between 1948 and 1971. It made its debut at the Earls Court Motor Show, London, in October 1948. Designed under the leadership of Alec Issigonis, more than 1.6 ...

.Revisiting Brunei’s Historical Brooketon Colliery at Muara.
/ref> The Museums Department of Brunei wanted to turn the historical 62 hectares coal mine as an open site

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

to promote the country's eco-tourism. It is currently already a protected site under the Antiquities and Treasure Trove Act of Brunei Darussalam.

Notes

{{coords, 5.0351, 115.0557, type:landmark_region:BN, display=title 1924 disestablishments Surface mines in Brunei Coal mines in Brunei Historic sites in Brunei