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Mid

West Triton tow line snaps
By Upstream staff
Sunday, 06 September, 2009


Fresh delay: a broken tow line means the West Triton will not arrive at the Montara site before 10 September

The jack-up rig West Triton will not arrive at the Montara blowout site before 10 Septmber, after a tow line connecting the rig to one of two tugs snapped, Thai outfit PTT Exploration & Production (PTTEP) said.

Oil, gas and condensate has been leaking into the Timor Sea since the blowout on 21 August at the PTTEP-operated Montara wellhead platform, about 250 kilometres off the north-west coast of Western Australia.

The Thai operator released a statement today saying the jack-up broke a tow line yesterday afternoon, west of Sumba Island in Indonesia.

"PTTEP has been informed the West Triton, which is being towed by two vessels from Batam Island near Singapore to the Montara oilfield, broke a tow line yesterday afternoon," it said.

"One tug vessel had a generator failure during an attempt to reconnect the line overnight. The rig was west of Sumba Island, Indonesia when the incident occurred.

"The vessel can still tow the West Triton but it has reduced bow thruster capability," the company said.

A relief vessel that has been sent from Darwin to assist is expected to reach the West Triton on Tuesday.

"PTTEP expects with favourable conditions and currents the rig will be towed to the east of Sumba Island into the Timor Sea and it is now expected to reach the Montara wellhead platform by Thursday morning [10 September]," the company said.

The West Triton is under tow to the Montara site, where it will drill a relief well, aimed at plugging the leak.

It is expected it could take up to six weeks to plug the leak from the wellhead platform.

upstreamonline.com

__________________
"Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement." - Arvind Ganesan, Human Rights Watch.

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blackgang

sounds like a full and complete Thai operation.
Why not hire a company with some brains to do these jobs?

Mid

PTT’s Timor Oil Leak Fix May Take More Than 4 Weeks
Jason Scott
Sept. 12

(Bloomberg) -- PTT Exploration & Production Pcl, Thailand’s only publicly traded oil exploration company, said it may need longer than four more weeks to plug a leaking well in the Timor Sea.

Intersecting the well head will take more than three weeks from tomorrow, with another week needed to then cap the leak with mud, PTTEP Australasia Director Jose Martins told reporters today in Perth.

He cited aerial studies as showing a reduction in the extent of the spill.

Oil, gas and condensate started seeping into the Timor Sea from a rig at PTT’s Montara project on Aug. 21.

Two days later the company said it might need 50 days to plug the leak from the well alongside the West Atlas rig, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) off Australia’s coast, implying completion by Oct. 12.

Australia plans to investigate the oil spill off the country’s northwest Kimberley wilderness region to prevent a repeat of the incident, Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said Sept. 7.

The Montara incident is the first well blowout in offshore Australia since 1984, he said, adding about 1,500 wells have been drilled safely in the last 25 years.

The Kimberley coast is described by Tourism Australia as “one of the world’s last true wilderness areas.”

The Australian Greens have said the area is a “marine superhighway,” with populations of baby turtles this time of year and a migratory route for whales.

The oil spill from Montara is 170 kilometers from the shore, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said Sept. 4.

The authority has been spraying dispersant to help break up the slick.

The cost of the spill to PTT is “substantial,” Martins said today, declining to give a monetary figure.

He also declined to comment on the cause of the spill.

The company previously said about 400 barrels of oil were leaking into the sea, declining to give a total today.

bloomberg.com

Airportwo

IF they had plugged the well correctly in the first place they wouldn't have this situation now! Going to cost them BIG time as this will (rightfully) be considered negligence........

Mid

Timor Sea Oil Spill May Worsen, Australian Conservationists Say
Ben Sharples

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- An oil spill from a leaking well off Western Australia that has polluted the Timor Sea with 1,200 metric tons of oil may worsen and is a “major ecological disaster in the making,” a conservation group says.

“This is a disaster that risks blowing out further in terms of its scale and impact on the ocean,” Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said in an e-mailed statement today. The spill has covered 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles), with 400 barrels a day leaking from the Montara field, the group said.

Oil, gas and condensate started seeping into the Timor Sea Aug. 21 from a leak 3,500 meters below the ocean floor during drilling by the local unit of Bangkok-based PTT Exploration & Production Pcl. The Thai company said today halting the flow by drilling a relief well to plug the leak with mud is expected to take a further three-and-a-half weeks to complete.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority observations indicate the size of the spill is reducing, Lauren Tindale, Perth-based spokeswoman for PTTEP Australasia, said by phone. The authority is coordinating the clean up effort and PTTEP has said it will cover the cost.

The government’s response to the spill is insufficient, Australian Greens party Senator Rachel Siewert said in a separate statement today. The spread of oil may affect commercially important fish stocks, the marine ecosystem and coral colonies around Ashmore Reef, about 840 kilometers west of Darwin and 610 kilometers north of Broome, Siewert said.

The relief well is expected to reach a depth of 1,622 meters on Sept. 20, PTTEP said in its statement.

bloomberg.com

Mid

Thai PTTEP to miss 2009 sales target on Montara deley
Thu Oct 1, 2009
Wilawan Pongpitak

* Montara field start-up delayed to late Q1/2010
* To review investment projects, may sell some assets (Adds details)

BANGKOK, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production (PTTE.BK) (PTTEP) said on Thursday the start-up of its Montara field in Australia would be delayed to the first quarter of 2010 from late 2009 due to an oil spill problem. [ID:nB17593]

The delay will cause the company to miss its 2009 petroleum sales target, Chief Executive Anon Sirisaengtaksin told reporters.

"It's possible that output from the field will come on stream in late first quarter of next year. Our sales volume should fall slightly below target because of the delay," he said.

PTTEP plans to produce about 35,000 barrels of oil per day from the Montara field, which should boost its 2009 petroleum sales to 240,000 barrels per day, the company has said.

The Montara field could be one of the main sources of profit for PTTEP in the second half as many analysts expect higher output from new oil and gas fields to boost sales.

PTTEP owns 100 percent of the Montara field through its wholly owned Australasia, formerly known as Coogee Resources, which the Thai firm acquired this year.

It is the flagship in the exploration and production business of top Thai energy firm PTT PTT.BK and is involved in about 40 oil and gas exploration and development projects in 14 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

To minimise risk, PTTEP plans to review the potential of the 40 projects, which could lead to sales of poorly performing assets, Anon said.

On Thursday, PTTEP stock closed up 0.7 percent at 145.50 baht, while the overall market was 1.4 percent higher.

(Reporting by Wilawan Pongpitak; Writing by Khettiya Jittapong; Editing by Jason Szep)

reuters.com

blackgang

Yes, and they are just doing a fuck of a good job too.

Mid

Oil spill killing wildlife off-shore Australia - WWF
10/23/2009

GLAND, Switzerland, Oct 23 (KUNA) -- Conservationists at the World Wilflife Fund (WWF) on Friday warned that one of Australia's worst off-shore oil spills is killing wildlife and "massively contaminating" one of the world's last great wildnernesses.

Amid a fourth attempt to plug the 64-day-old leak at the Montara drilling rig, the spill, which has already spread over an area 10 times the size of London, continued to expand at the rate of 300 barrels of oil a day in an area of the Timor Sea famed for its marine reserves and coral, the fund said in a statement.

Dolphins, migratory sea birds, sea snakes and marine turtles were exposed to toxins. The spill has killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of animals, it added.

Since August 21, when there was an accident at the Montara offshore drilling rig's well head, around 403,000 litres of oil have been pumped into the Timor Sea. The rig is owned by the Thai oil company PTTEP.

Satellite images show a 25,000-square-kilometre spill spreading across the surface of the ocean and spilling into Indonesian waters, threatening the marine reserves of Ashmore and Cartier reefs along the way.
(end)

kuna.net.kw

Rigger

Talking about drilling my little rig just broke the world drilling record for a major world wide American operator

Mid

Fourth attempt to plug Montara leak fails
Monday, 26 October, 2009

Thailand’s PTTEP is facing more woe as it tries to stop the oil leak at its Montara project off Australia after being forced to abandon its fourth attempt to plug the hole.


Oil slick: at the Montara project

The latest attempt was thwarted after the drilling assembly failed while being run in the relief well hole.

PTTEP said yesterday that it was retrieving the assembly and would then continue preparations to make a new pass to intercept the well casing early this week.

Over two months since the accident, the blown out well bore is still leaking, threatening a wide range of marine life according to the WWF.

Estimates for the amount of oil, gas and condensate leaking from the well have been put at almost 500,000 litres - 3145 barrels - to date.

PTTEP says just 300 to 400 barrels of oil per day is leaking from the damaged well bore, but the Department of Resources, Energy & Tourism yesterday told a Senate committee it believed up to 2000 bpd is being pumped into the sea.

Australia's federal Resources Ministry has said it believes PTTEP's estimates, adding that the higher estimate is based on flows if the well was in full production.

upstreamonline.com

Mid

Aussie oil rig on fire
Nov 1, 2009


'PTTEP Australasia reports the West Atlas rig and Montara well head platform are on fire,' the firm said in a statement.
-- PHOTO: REUTERS

SYDNEY - AN OIL rig which has been leaking thousands of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea off Australia's north-west coast for more than two months was on fire Sunday, the company said.

A spokesman for the company said specialists had finally succeeded in the first stage of plugging the well, which has been spilling up to 400 barrels of oil each day into the ocean since Aug 21.

'They had not actually stopped or killed the leak... and then unfortunately the fire broke out,' she told AFP.

PTTEP said all personnel working at the isolated site some 250km offshore had been reported safe and non-essential staff were being evacuated. The company gave no indication of the severity of the blaze.

The rig's operators have been struggling for weeks to stop the leak, which environmentalists fear poses long-term risks to the area's wildlife. -- AFP

straitstimes.com

Chairman Mao

I'm not an expert... but it appears that it's been on fire since Mon 26th.

baldrick

a jackup was put over the platform and was drilling without a BOP and they cracked the casing.

so both the platform and the jack up will be a write off

Rigger

How does that work ?
Ok we do it on land rigs before surface csg but once the well is live they arent coming off untill csg is cemented and normaly reteivable plug set.
How could they let them drill with out a Bop

jarne

from long lost memory I think its done in special circumstances and you use a heavy mixed drilling fluid to keep the balance

jarne

killmud !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
motherfuckers

yeah

Rigger

Mud is never counted as a barrier when removing a Bop ?.
Casing, cement, plugs, Bop, yes and you must have two of these before lifting the Bop

Bung

So in a country that does everything half arsed does this extend right up to the top national petrochemical company or was this just an unfortunate accident?

Mid

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

Airportwo

Incompetence, there was never a problem with the well the rig was working on, the well that "blew out" was on the same template and had been inadequately P & A, it failed while they were working on adjacent well, think there were 4 wells on the template.

Seadrill confirms that the West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit and PTTEPA's Montara well head platform are on fire. All personnel on the nearby West Triton, Seadrill's other mobile offshore drilling unit working in the area, are safe. The West Triton is located 2 kilometres from the West Atlas and is not affected by the fire at this time. The West Triton was performing well kill operations on the leaking H1 well when the fire broke out. Seadrill's emergency response team is working closely with PTTEPA. More information will be released as the situation develops. The West Atlas and West Triton are owned by a Seadrill subsidiary and are contracted to PTTEPA for operations on the Montara field.

Seadrill Limited
Hamilton, Bermuda
November 1st, 2009