Impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on traditional oil mining at Wonocolo Village Kedewan Sub-District Bojonegoro Regency East Java

Abstract

Mining in the world consists of modern and traditional mining. Various studies have discussed how field workers were precarious at being exposed to Covid-19 in modern mining. Many studies discuss ways of modern mines overcoming Covid-19, but discussion of research related to the impacts of Covid-19 on traditional mining has not been carried out. This study addressed the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on traditional oil mining in Wonocolo, Bojonegoro Regency. This work is a descriptive study using observation and in-depth interviews and reviewing secondary data related to conventional mining activities. The results showed that the Covid-19 pandemic has an indirect effect on traditional oil mining activities in Wonocolo. The pandemic caused a decrease in demand, a drop in selling prices, lower production, and temporary closure of wells in Wonocolo traditional mining. In contrast, Covid-19 did not directly affect miners’ activities since the miners believed that Covid-19 could not infect them due to the very extreme condition in the mining area that the Coronavirus would not survive.