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PTTEP Says Rig May Collapse With Fire Out of Control
(Update1)
Jason Scott



Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production Pcl shares fell the most in more than five months after the company said a blazing oil rig off northwest Australia may collapse into the Timor Sea.

“The fire is out of control,” Jose Martins, a director of PTTEP’s Australian unit, told reporters in Perth today.

The rig sits above a well that has been leaking oil and gas in what has become the nation’s third-worst spill.

Thailand’s only publicly traded oil-exploration company has tried and failed for the past 10 weeks to plug a leak at the well, 2,600 meters (1.6 miles) below the seabed off the northwestern Australian coast.

Yesterday’s fourth attempt to stem the flow may have triggered the fire, Martins said.

PTTEP’s shares dropped 6.2 percent to 136 baht at the trading lunch break in Bangkok, on course for its lowest close since Aug. 17 and it’s biggest decline since May 14.

The stock was the worst performer in the SET50 Index, a measure of 50 largest publicly traded companies, which fell 2.5 percent at the lunch break.

“Investor confidence has been badly hurt,” Avin Sony, a Bangkok-based analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Pcl, wrote in a report today.

PTTEP has engaged “world-leading companies” to help stem the leak at the Montara well and the fire at the West Atlas drilling rig, Australia’s Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson said.

A “full investigation” will be launched into the incident once the well has been plugged and the blaze put out, he told reporters in Melbourne.

Minister Should Quit

Australian Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, said Ferguson should resign over his handling of the incident.

“He has completely bungled one of the biggest environmental catastrophes the Commonwealth government has had to deal with,” Brown said in a radio interview today.

“He should go.”

Bangkok-based PTTEP has estimated the Montara well has leaked 300 to 400 barrels of oil a day, making it the third- biggest spill in Australia’s history, according to figures from the Maritime Safety Authority.

The company has set aside A$177 million ($159 million) as provisions against costs for the leak, which won’t be completely covered by insurance, PTTEP’s Martins said in Perth Oct. 29.

Efforts to cap the leak have been complicated by the challenge of intercepting the steel-encased well deep below the seabed.

The Montara well is in waters 80 meters deep and some 690 kilometers (430 miles) from Darwin in the Northern Territory.

The world’s largest population of humpback whales, estimated at about 22,000, is found along the northwestern coast, according to a May-September survey conducted by whale researchers Richard Costin and Annabelle Sandes.

Tourism Australia has described the region as “one of the world’s last true wilderness areas.”

bloomberg.com

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Bobcock

up pops the uninformed......

PTTEP maybe the operator catching all the flack, but like all operators they are not the drillers and it is the drillers who caused this problem.

For you information the company who are unnamed but the responsible party and own both jack ups involved, the West Triton and the West Atlas, are SeaDrill Ltd a very experienced drilling firm based in the Bahamas and listed on the Finnish Stock Market.

I would guarantee there were far more Americans, Brits and Australians on that rig than Thais.

Who do you suggest they should have employed?

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TEAK DOOR FORUM - 'Giving wackjobs a voice'

Airportwo

The operator designs the well and tells the Drilling contractor what to do, it is PTTEP responsibility

jarne

no no n

Rigger

Where I come from the operator owns the well and the (Driller) Contractor owns the rig and only does what the operator tells him to do with the well, PTTEP are responsible

DrAndy

ultimately, yes, but the drilling company are the ones who fucked up

Bobcock

Of course they are ultimately responsible, it wasn't what I was getting at, however blackgangs typical pig ignorant rant implying that the little brown man should stand aside and hire whitey to do the work is far from the mark.

Large amounts of the top people at PTTEP are expats and certainly that branch of them.

Bobcock

Of course no US or UK operator has never had a spill......EVER....

Rigger

Where does it say that ?. The drilling company have no say in well design or grade of casing or the way a well is abandoned.

Please tell me where the contractor foked up as I must of missed that part

Airportwo

Yes please enlighten us Dr Andy? They never even worked on the well that is burning!

I received about ten pictures of the platform burning, its a good blaze the rig wont last long for sure!

DrAndy

OK it might not be them, my extrapolation of facts!! sorry if I am wrong

but if not them, who?

You cannot blame PTT as they are operators in name only. The US oil company who runs things has its own office block in the PTT compound in N Bangkok, they make all the decisions

so it is either the US managers or the drillers who made mistakes, and continue to do so. If they have hired unskilled workers for skilled jobs, as suggested, that would be interesting, but I have never seen that

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Whiteshiva

Are you sure about that.....?

Airportwo

Questionable????

In February 2009, Coogee Resources Limited was acquired by a subsidiary of PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP) and renamed PTTEP Australasia Limited (PTTEP AA). PTTEP is Thailand’s national petroleum exploration and production company and is one of the nation’s largest publicly-listed companies, with more than 40 projects around the world. PTTEP AA will continue the development of the Montara (and the other projects) in the Timor Sea.

Begbie

News to me Andy. Maybe you're confusing PTT with Chevron.

baldrick

Indian pusher maybe

Airportwo

Attempt to post a picture

Rigger

Do you know how many white guys on my rig, two at this moment me and one canadian and come midnight there will be one, just me.
Cheap labour has hit the oil patch hard with sub standard drillers, directional driller, tradesman. Anyone that beleive third world countrys can run their own drilling and production has probably never stepped foot on a rig in their life

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galaxytrash

it's all about the $$, ain't it. and don't be surprised that if you and the canuck keep punching holes in the ground without any disasters, they'll decide "hey, we can drop one of these expats and hire another egyptian to replace him, we'll save another 7,000$ a month. oh boy, won't our shareholders love us?"

yeah, until the fucking rig burns down...

Muadib

The company I am with is required by government regulations to use local labor for the majority of rig personnel on projects within territorial waters of many countries... We may have 4 - 6 company men on board running the job, but the locals do all the heavy lifting...

As far as SOP on authority, the contractor does what the operator tells them to do, period... The operator is responsible for geology, targets, well design, casing & cementing programs, liner options, logging and on and on... The operator runs the job by telling the contractor what to do... If a problem arises, you bet your sweet ass the contractor's on board supervisor will defer to the operator for a decision...

Having said that, I haven't found any info on well ops when the blowout occurred...

RIGZONE - PTTEP Attempting to Bring Montara Leak Under Control

RIGZONE - Map and Image Library

Montara (West Atlas) Blowout and Oil Spill, Western Australia, August 2009 - a set on Flickr

VOA News - Australian Oil Spill Stemmed After 10 Weeks

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jarne

re bobcock

maybe a bit frank, but like rest off the educated world

but we can all agree its for the best that
little brown men
or bigger blacker men
or muslimg "something"
all stand aside
and let mr whitey do the brain work

it benefits the entire world, the galaxy even the whole universe
i dear say

the operator is leagally responsible in most cases
as head of the operation
represented by drilling supervisor