BALIKPAPAN

bay and seaport, Kalimantan Timur provinsi (province), Indonesia, situated on the eastern coast of Indonesian Borneo, facing the Makasar Strait. It is the site of a major oil refinery that processes both imported and local crude oils. There are producing oil fieldswhich are operated, though they are no longer controlled, by British-American-Dutch intereststhat have been in operation there since 1899 as well as in the coastal region stretching approximately 60 miles (100 km) toward the northeast. The refinery was destroyed in 1942 as part of a scorched-earth policy, in the face of the Japanese invasion, but it was rebuilt after World War II. Pop. (1980) 280,675.