Marian Wilkinson, Sydney Morning Herald 29 Aug 09;
THE state-owned Thai energy company PTTEP has failed to stop a major oil leak from its wellhead off the north-west Australian coast despite a week-long emergency response that has seen 16,000 litres of chemical dispersant dropped on the huge slick.
After flying over the West Atlas oil rig spill in the Timor Sea yesterday, the Greens senator Rachel Siewert said people had been seriously misled about the size and extent of the spill.
"The spill is far bigger than we have been told, and closer to the coast than expected," she said.
"There is a film of oil around the rig, and from horizon to horizon. From east to west it stretches 180 kilometres at a minimum. Urgent action is needed to stop the flow''.
But stopping the leak could still take weeks, according to the Federal Government and PTTEP.
Technical problems delayed by two days the company's plans to bring a new oil rig from Singapore to drill a "relief well" near the leaking one in the hope it would stem the flow.
A spokesman for PTTEP said the new rig left Singapore on Thursday. But it will take well over two weeks to arrive at the site, 250 kilometres off the coast in the Timor Sea and up to four weeks to drill the second well.
Throughout this week the company reported that the oil slick stretched eight nautical miles from its disabled West Atlas drilling rig, which is an area known to be rich in marine life.
The federal Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, who is responsible for the safety of offshore petroleum rigs, said he wanted the leaking well repaired as fast as possible but was worried by the safety risks involved. Departmental officials have been in talks with other companies, including the energy giant Woodside, which have offered the use of drills and equipment.
However, there were doubts whether these would be compatible with the operations at the wellhead. "We do not want to put lives, facilities or the environment at further risk. Therefore this work must be done with due diligence", a spokesman for Mr Ferguson said. "Discussions are continuing on a number of options in parallel with the mobilisation of the West Triton drilling rig.
"It is inappropriate to speculate on those options until they are fully and properly assessed."
After inspecting the slick, Senator Siewert said last night the company "should be compelled to take up Woodside's offer of a closer rig, which would enable the spill to be stopped much sooner".
The Greens leader, Bob Brown, said last night he was writing to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, calling on him to intervene and take up Woodside's offer.
The company said it had flown equipment from Singapore to Darwin to try to flood the wellhead platform and the rig to reduce the threat of fire. It is expected to be on site in days.
Inspectors from the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority have begun interviewing company employees but the head of the authority, Simon Schubach, said inspectors were still unable to inspect the rig and nearby platform because they remained "hazardous".
About 69 employees were evacuated from the West Atlas rig on at 5.30am on August 21 after an uncontrolled release of crude oil and methane gas from the Montara wellhead platform where the West Atlas rig was operating.
Mr Schubach said the investigation could be protracted but would look at any breaches of the law. A parallel investigation will also be undertaken by the federal Environment Department.
Australia Sprays Oil Slick Amid Wildlife Fears
PlanetArk 28 Aug 09;
Aircraft sprayed chemicals to break up a large oil slick off Australia's northwestern coast on Sunday as environmentalists expressed fears for rare wildlife from oil gushing into the sea from an uncapped well.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the slick from the West Atlas offshore drilling rig had lengthened overnight from an estimated 8 nautical miles (15 km) on Saturday.
The first sortie of chemical dispersant sprayed on Sunday from a C-130 Hercules aircraft appeared to have started to break up the slick, a spokeswoman said. However, the clean-up cannot be completed until the well is capped, which experts say may take days.
"The indications are that the application of the dispersant has been successful," said AMSA spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins. "We are certainly prepared for an ongoing operation."
Rig operator PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL PTTE.BK, has flown in a team of experts to try and determine how to cap the well, which first began to leak oil and gas on Friday.
An air exclusion zone had been set up and ships have been advised to stay more than 20 nautical miles away from the rig, which is currently considered too dangerous to board.
Environmental group WWF called on Sunday for changes to preparations for such disasters, pointing out it took three days for the first dispersant to be sprayed, although the region is considered a critical area for biodiversity.
"From a global scale this is one of the most important places on the planet for ocean wildlife," Gilly Llewelyn, WWF Australia's director of conservation, told Reuters.
Among the animals affected were three endangered species of turtles, plus sea snakes, she said. Even a pygmy blue whale has been monitored there in what seemed to be an "oceanic highway" linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Many of those animals breathe air and periodically need to surface, and could surface in the middle of the slick, she said.
"It seems to be one of these critical migration routes -- an oceanic super highway," she said.
A national clean-up plan has been activated to deal with the spill, which occurred at the Montara development, a project due to come on stream later this year. The West Atlas drilling unit is owned by Norway's SeaDrill Ltd (SDRL.OL), but operated by PTTEP Australasia.
The location has been given as about 250 km (155 miles) off the far north Kimberley coast of Western Australia state, and 150 km south-east of Ashmore Reef, a small Australian offshore possession.
Australia's official overseer for the petroleum industry, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority, was investigating the incident.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
