Thread: PTTEP Australasia : Montara

PTTEP price drops on Australia's move



PTT Exploration and Production Plc's share price today dropped Bt9 or 5 per cent to Bt171, following Australia's announcement that it is considering to revoke the oil licenses in the Montara oil field.

The Australian government said today it is considering revoking PTTEP's licenses following a recent oil spill at its Montara platform in August 2009, the latest regulatory backlash against the global energy industry as it reels from a string of disastrous spills. An independent report into the incident found "widespread and systemic" shortcomings in PTTEP's procedures were a direct cause of the loss of well control, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson told Parliament.

According to Australia News Network, Ferguson told Parliament he has accepted the report's recommendation that the PTTEP should have its operating licence reviewed.

"The government is committed to doing everything possible to avoid incidents like Montara in the future and is working to ensure we achieve the best and safest offshore petroleum industry in the world," he said.

"Industry, government and regulators must be absolutely committed to a culture of high safety standards and environmental protection within a framework of continuous improvement."

He also told Parliament the Northern Territory's Department of Resources failed to adequately regulate operation of the oil well.

"The commissioner found that the Northern Territory Department of Resources was not a sufficiently diligent regulator, adopting a minimalist approach to its regulatory responsibilities," he said.

"The way in which the regulator conducted its responsibilities gave it little chance of discovering PTTEP Australasia's poor practices."

Ferguson said the Montara oil spill was avoidable. "At the heart of this matter is the failure of the operator and the failure of the regulator to adhere to this regime. Montara was preventable. "If either, or preferably both PTTEP AA or the Northern Territory designated authority had done their jobs properly and complied with requirements, the Montara blowout would never have happened."

Ferguson said the government will move to have a single, national offshore regulator of the industry.

nationmultimedia.com

Originally Posted by blackgang

Originally Posted by Mid It is the flagship in the exploration and production business of top Thai energy firm PTT Yes, and they are just doing a fuck of a good job too.

Could have been worse...they might have called in the "BP experts" to advise.

PTTEP acknowledges oil spill in Timor Sea: Minister
Nani Afrida
12/14/2010

Thailand-based oil and gas producer PTTEP Australasia has finally acknowledged responsibility for an oil spill in the Timor Sea that occurred in 2009, an Indonesian minister said.

“We held a meeting with them and they have confessed. Actually, we need the confession,” Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The company would hold another meeting with the Indonesian government to discuss data on sea contamination, Freddy said.

“We still demand Rp 23 trillion (US$2.56 billion) in compensation from the company to repair the damages,” Freddy said.

PTTEP Australasia’s oil platform in the Montara field off Australia’s northern coast exploded and spilled more than 500,000 liters of crude oil per day into the Timor Sea in August 2009.

Thirty-eight percent of Indonesia’s marine territory in the Timor Sea were reportedly affected by the spill. Local fishermen’s catches reportedly dropped and thousands of tons of shallow water fish died, while marine mammals, including whales, also fell victim.

thejakartapost.com

Australian government covers up causes of Montara oil spill
Mike Head
30 December 2010

The Gillard government has sought to shield itself, and the rapidly growing offshore oil and gas industry in Australia, from the fallout from last year’s 74-day spill at the Montara wellhead platform, 250 km off the country’s northwest coast. Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson last month released the report of an official inquiry that confined blame for the disaster to the Thai-owned company that operated the well, and the Northern Territory (NT) regulator that Ferguson had placed in charge of monitoring safety in the offshore oil and gas field.

According to the inquiry’s findings, the Thai conglomerate PTTEP systematically violated elementary safety standards. Its “systems and processes were so deficient” that the blowout was “an accident waiting to happen”. As for the designated regulator, the Northern Territory Department of Resources, it adopted a minimalist “tick and flick” and “no questions asked” approach that “gave it little chance of discovering PTTEP’s poor practices”.

Nevertheless, the inquiry, and the government, concluded that these were simply faults of one company and one agency, effectively whitewashing the cost-cutting, profit-driven character of the entire industry, the de-regulation regime introduced over the past 20 years, and the Labor government’s efforts to rapidly expand an industry that last year generated $35.6 billion in revenue for the energy conglomerates.

Ferguson delayed releasing the report, which he received in June, for five months in order to bury the issue during the August federal election. He was also concerned to distance its publication as far as possible from this year’s catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. When the findings were eventually made public, he used them to reject demands for a moratorium on the opening up of new areas of the Australian-controlled seabed for exploration and drilling.

The energy minister acknowledged that the Deepwater Horizon disaster had highlighted safety and environmental concerns, but declared that “shutting down the industry and putting the nation’s energy security, jobs and the economy at risk” would do nothing to enhance safety. Ferguson claimed that the establishment of a national regulator—to be named the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) would “restore the Australian community’s confidence” in the regulation of the industry.

In reality, all the circumstances surrounding the Montara blowout and the government’s response indicate that the lives of drill workers, the well-being of fishing and other communities in Australia and neighbouring Indonesia, and the health of the marine environment, are to be put at ever greater risk.

The Montara blowout lasted for 74 days, from August 21 to November 3, 2009. It took five attempts to plug the leak by drilling a new connection that intercepted the well casing, some 2.6 km below the seabed, and then pumping in mud. Before the fifth attempt succeeded, a three-day fire broke out on the platform, highlighting the danger that had existed for the 65 workers who were evacuated from the rig when the leak initially erupted.

Throughout the disaster, Ferguson and then environment minister, Peter Garrett, downplayed the size of the spill and the environmental fallout. They cited PTTEP’s unsubstantiated claims that about 300 to 400 barrels of oil were leaking daily. The commission of inquiry, conducted by former senior public servant David Borthwick, estimated a spill of as much as 1,500 barrels a day and a slick that extended up to 90,000 square kilometres, and into Indonesian waters near West Timor, where the oil contaminated fishing and seaweed farming areas.

Borthwick concluded that the environmental monitoring of the spill was so poor that: “It is unlikely that the full impact of the blowout will ever be known. This reflects the vast and remote area affected by the spill; the absence of solid reliable baseline data on species and ecosystems, and the slow response in putting together a monitoring plan.”

The inquiry found that the immediate source of the blowout was the failure of the primary well control barrier, a cemented shoe casing, and that the causes of the spill were systemic. Not one well control barrier on the H1 Well had complied with the company’s own standards; the cement casing had not been pressure-tested, despite major problems in installing it; and only one of the two required secondary well barriers was ever installed. Despite being advised of this highly dangerous situation, PTTEP ordered drilling to proceed.

None of PTTEP’s five wells at the Montara oilfield had proper safety controls. Borthwick rejected the company’s insistence that it “did not cut corners or seek to minimise costs where this might compromise safety or well integrity,” saying “this claim does not bear scrutiny”. He concluded that PTTEP’s operation did not come within a “bull’s roar” of “sensible oilfield practice”, adding that the company regarded the regulator as a “soft touch”.

Under the Offshore Petroleum Act the federal government was the regulator of the oil and gas fields across the Timor Sea. Ferguson, however, had delegated responsibility to the small NT resources department, allocating it just $2 million a year for the task. Borthwick reported that the NT department had only one technically qualified official and “does not conduct on-site inspections”. In any case, under the Labor government’s 2009 regulations, the maximum penalty for unsafe operating was just $8,800.

The NT agency’s “hands off” approach was entirely in line with the de-regulation agenda that has increasingly been implemented by both Labor and Liberal governments over recent years. Borthwick referred to a “move away from prescriptive regulation toward objective-based regulation, leaving it to the owner/operator to determine how good oilfield practice is to be applied”.

Nevertheless, the report did not recommend a return to prescriptive regulation, asserting that this would be “unnecessarily complicated”, “obscure” and likely to “unduly stifle innovation and new technologies”. While Borthwick recommended higher penalties and the introduction of a “polluter-pays” principle for clean-up costs, this regime would still leave the door wide open for profit-driven cost-cutting in the guise of “innovation”.

In fact, Ferguson’s proposal for a national regulator is substantially derived from a previous Productivity Commission report, published in the same month as the Montara blowout. In Borthwick’s words that report “focused on removing unnecessary burdens on the sector”. He said such an agency would provide operators with a “one-stop-shop” for all environmental and workplace safety licences.

Obviously briefed in advance, the oil industry umbrella group, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), immediately welcomed the report and the government’s response. APPEA chief executive Belinda Robinson noted that the proposed single regulator was in line with the Productivity Commission’s review.

To deflect attention from the underlying issues, Ferguson announced a further investigation to determine whether to cancel PTTEP’s five oil and gas production licenses. The minister insisted that the industry did not have a “cowboy culture”, and falsely claimed that Montara had been the first major leak in Australian waters in 25 years, during which time more than 3,000 wells had been drilled.

In reality, in 1998, there were fatal explosions at the Longford natural gas plant in the Bass Strait, on Australia’s southern shore, operated by Esso Australia, a subsidiary of Exxon. Esso was eventually found guilty of breaching safety laws over the blasts, which killed two workers, Peter Wilson and John Lowerty, and injured another eight, as well as cutting gas supplies to more than a million homes and businesses for two weeks.

A jury convicted Esso on 11 occupational health and safety charge, including failure to identify hazards, assess risks, monitor dangerous conditions, and provide crisis shutdown devices. Under the de-regulation regime in place, Esso was largely responsible for running its own safety checks. WorkCover Victoria, the government agency responsible for carrying out safety audits, had been downsized to such an extent that inspections and risk assessments had been severely curtailed.

The Gillard government’s response has been driven by its determination to expand the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry as quickly as possible, providing a bonanza for giant corporations, such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell, that have projects underway off the north-west coast. Ferguson last year estimated Australia’s gas reserves at $1 trillion and forecast that LNG exports would total $24 billion by 2017-18, nearly doubling over a decade. The Labor government’s whitewash of the potentially fatal Montara disaster will only ensure that the major operators will continue to put industry workers, nearby populations and the natural environment at great risk in the pursuit of ever-greater profits.

wsws.org

Talks on Montara oil spill remain unclear
01/12/2011

JAKARTA: Negotiations with an foreign company for compensations for an oil spill in the Timor Sea remain unclear, despite the imminent expiration of the decree empowering the Indonesian team.

Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi previously issued a decree, which was expected to expire on Saturday, creating a negotiation team comprised of senior officials from the Foreign Affairs, Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministries.

The team was established 10 months after the Montara oil platform operated by Thai-owned oil-rig operator PTTEP Australasia exploded in August 2009.

Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said that the Indonesian team and PTTEP representatives would meet again on Monday to continue discussions.

“I will report to Minister Freddy [and ask him] to extend the decree so the team can continue the negotiations,” Hatta said on Tuesday.

Hatta said that Indonesia wanted PTTEP to admit its culpability for the oil spill, which damaged Indonesian territory.

Indonesia has unofficially demanded Rp 23 trillion (US$ 2.5 billion) in compensation for damage from the spill. — JP

thejakartapost.com

Australia extends Montara license to PTTEP



The Australian government decided to allow PTTEP Australasia Pty Ltd (PTTEP AA), a wholly owned subsidiary of PTT Exploration and Production Plc. (PTTEP), to continue its operation in Australia, according to PTTEP's release today.

"The ongoing Montara development is expected to lead to first oil production in the fourth quarter this year. Construction of the wellhead platform topside is expected to be completed this month," said Anon Sirisaengtaksin, president and CEO of PTTEP, in the release.

Regarding the Indonesian government's claim, PTTEP AA is in discussion with the Indonesian government team to seek verifiable evidence proving the oil spill damage. No conclusion has been reached, the company said.

In Australia's announcement, made by Australia's Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson MP, the government allows the company to continue its exploratation and production in Australia. Its decision recognises PTTEP's commitment to deliver the highest standards of oil field practice and safety in its operations.

"The action plan implemented by PTTEP AA effectively responds to the issues identified in the Montara Commission of Inquiry and sets PTTEPAA on the path to achieving industry best practice standards for both good oil field practice and good governance," the minister said.

PTTEP AA will fully comply with an 18-month action plan monitoring programme. The company will cooperate with the government to complete a binding Deed of Agreement which will ensure the action plan is fully implemented.

Anon said "We are very pleased with this announcement and confident of restoring the Australian government's trust in PTTEP AA's capability as a prudent operator with international E&P best practices. We developed the Action Plan in consultation with the Australian Government and key regulatory agencies and had implemented it with our full contribution for about 1 year to prove our commitment as prudent operator in Australia. We are firmly committed to further developing our action plan to regain more trust, as well as to delivering the highest standards of E&P practices and safety in our operation wherever we operate."

The key elements of the plan cover the improvement of the safety, health and environment management system, development of a drilling and a competency management system, and the interface between PTTEP headquarters in Bangkok and PTTEP AA in Australia. In all these areas, PTTEP AA will apply E&P best practices.

The company added that some elements of the plan have been accomplished or are in progress. For example, review of PTTEP AA's drilling organization and drilling management system documentation, to improve efficiency and safety, is being completed.

In addition, the company is making structural management changes by appointing a new Australian chief executive officer and an advisory board, which will collaborate with PTTEP AA's senior management in delivering better corporate governance. To be chaired by Pichai Chunhavajira, a PTTEP board member, the advisory board will comprise representatives from PTTEP in Bangkok, and independent members from Australia who are to be appointed in coming months.

PTTEP AA is funding a long-term environmental monitoring program in association with the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (DSEWPaC). Further results of other scientific studies will be provided when they become available.

nationmultimedia.com

Montara oil spill workers call for compensation settlement
12 March 2012

Two oil rig workers who were caught up in one of Australia's worst oil disasters, the Timor Sea Montara blowout in 2009, are wondering why they are being treated differently to BP's oil workers in the US who were involved in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Montara oil spill workers call for compensation settlement (Credit: ABC)

They say it's outrageous that PTTEP Australasia is dragging its heels when a company like BP is settling cases overseas.

Earlier this month, BP agreed in principle to pay a further $8 billion dollars in compensation.

However in Australia, PTTEP denies responsibility for the Montara blowout and is locked in a legal battle, despite a federal inquiry blaming the company.

Presenter: David Weber

Speaker: Tim Kucera, lawyer

WEBER: Bruce Taplin and Peter Dowse were the last to leave the Montara platform after the blowout in August 2009. They're seeking compensation for mental and emotional trauma and for loss of earnings. Tim Kucera says his clients have seen BP moving to resolve claims and they're wondering why theirs haven't been dealt with.

KUCERA: The Montara incident happened before what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. My clients are looking at this and saying to me, well look if it's good enough for BP why isn't it good enough for PTTEP to sit down and resolve these issues? They both involved blowouts, they both involved a large amount of oil being discharged into the sea. I suppose as we say the only significant difference between the two incidents is is that the people that were on the Montara rig weren't incinerated at the time of the blowout, which is what happened in the Gulf of Mexico.

WEBER: PTTEP is defending the legal claim through its insurer. Mr Kucera says this makes things difficult for his clients.

KUCERA: What their defences do is they deny that they breached the duty of care, which they acknowledge they owed our clients. The difficulty that creates for us is this: There's a Commonwealth government inquiry report which clearly sheets responsibility home to PTTEP for the whole disaster. I think everyone in the community would've thought that the findings in that report would've brought those issues to a close. But in reality what's taking place is that our clients are about to go into a fight for compensation.

WEBER: So PTTEP has admitted to having a duty of care but has not admitted responsibility for what has happened

KUCHERA: That's what the defence does. They say yes we have a duty yes we own and operated the rig but we are not responsible for what occured in the west Atlas incident

WEBER; So how are Bruce Taplin and Peter Dowse going?

TIM KUCERA: In addition to battling the post traumatic stress conditions that they are suffering from Bruce Taplin has run out of money. His compensation payments under our West Australian workers comp system ran out some months ago. Mr Dowse is looking down the gun barrel of a similar problem come July. Those blokes are up against it when it comes to meeting day-to-day expenses and their bills. Despite public promises to make good their mess we're seeing our clients being put under the same sorts of pressures you typically see in these kinds of compensation cases. PTTEP have been allowed to get on with their lives, with their commercial lives and get on with their business, my clients want the same thing

WEBER: A spokesman for PTTEP has said the company would not be commenting because the matter is in the hands of its insurer. The lawyers for the insurer have not responded to a request for information.

radioaustralia.net.au


audio available at the link .

meanwhile early reports indicate a rig is adrift in the region after tow lines again snapped off Darwin , which has just had a cyclone watch cancelled .............

Australian oil disaster 'costing Indonesians billions'
George Roberts
July 26, 2012


Photo: WWF vision of the Montara oil spill from 2009.

A study has found that contamination from one of Australia's worst oil spills is still costing Indonesian fishing villages more than $1.5 billion per year.

The Montara oil platform was in Australia's exclusive economic zone, but when the well head blew out in August 2009, the slick drifted across the Timor Sea to Indonesia.

Now the the Centre for Energy and Environmental Studies in Jakarta has produced an interim report on the damage.

It has found the oil and chemical dispersants used are still affecting marine ecosystems and costing coastal communities more than $1.5 billion per year in lost earnings.

The centre's director, Doctor Mukhtasor, says Australia, Indonesia and the Thai government-owned company involved are obligated to fund a full investigation and work out compensation.

A west Timor community spokesman, Ferdi Tamoni, says the loss of livelihood is also driving local fisherman into people smuggling.

xxx.xxx.xx

2009 Timor Sea Oil Spill ‘Just as Devastating as Gulf of Mexico’
July 22, 2012


This handout photo provided by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from Sept. 2009 shows a man looking at a waxy substance found in water affected by the Montara oil rig leak in the Timor Sea. Monitoring the clean-up of a huge oil spill in pristine Australian waters could take as long as seven years, an official said in Nov. 2009, as environmentalists urged a wide-ranging inquiry into the disaster.
(AFP Photo/WWF/Kara Burns)

Kupang, West Timor. A prominent US expert in oil spill recovery said in Kupang on Saturday that Indonesia needs to craft a program to deal with the lingering and largely over-looked effects of the 2009 Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea.

Dr. Robert Spies, who was the Chief Scientist for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, and who served as an adviser to US government after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, said the Timor Sea can still be restored, but only with “serious attempts” made by the Indonesian and Australian governments in coordination with the company who operated the Montara platform.

Serious attempts would include substantial money, much of which should come from Thai state-owned oil and gas company PTT Exploration and Production, Montara’s primary operator.

Spies said he's recently studied the impact of the Montara spill in the Timor sea, especially in Indonesian waters. He said the pollution caused by the Montara leak was just as severe as the Gulf of Mexico spill.

“Restoration programs could be made after hearing expert opinions involved in examining the effects of the pollution on the environment,” Spies said at a discussion on pollution and impact on the environment.

The Montara oil spill leaked an estimated 2,000 barrels a day from Aug. 21 to Nov. 3 2009 (or 74 days), according to the Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism. The Montara slick grew to almost 90,000 square kilometers and entered Indonesian waters, according to environmental group WWF.

A team led by the Environment Ministry said the oil slick covered 16,420 square meters of Indonesian maritime territory. The West Timor Care Foundation, which supports poor fishermen in eastern Indonesia, estimated the spill affected the livelihoods of about 18,000 fishermen. Businesses such as seaweed and pearl farms were also reportedly hit.

Spies said damage in the Gulf of Mexico was minimized thanks to quick action taken by American authorities in 2010; Spies said the US government was quick to launch environmental restoration programs, and asked British Petroleum to finance much of the environmental assessment.

BP was also asked to provide compensation for people directly impacted by the spill — namely fishermen.

Similar methods could be used for the Timor Sea pollution through coordination through the multitude of companies involved, Spies was quoted as saying by Antara.

The Motara platform was owned by Norwegian-Bermudan Seadrill, and operated by PTTEP Australasia (PTTEPAA), a subsidiary of PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) — that company was in turn a subsidiary of PTT.

Houston-based Halliburton was involved in cementing the well, and were also involved in cementing the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well.

Jakarta Globe and Antara

thejakartaglobe.com

This is an absolute disgrace, not just the Lack of awareness it received but how they get away with it!!

Ive heard the Old Rig was removed and another Thai and Foreign Crewed Rig replaced it, many Australian Seamen lost there job. I meet 1 recently at Singa Airport,
Northern Territory Government and N.T. News quite gutless in providing news, or reporting the Facts.

^The rig was in international waters, 200 kilometers off the West Australian coast. Why would you claim the NT News and NT Government were gutless? It is nowhere near their jurisdiction.

My apologies 'Blue' You probably work for the Shiite Rag at 1 time

Originally Posted by mingmong

My apologies 'Blue' You probably work for the Shiite Rag at 1 time

Now that's just rude; I have standards.
But Wicking is bloody funny!

So are you Indian or Filipino?

No but I have done Indian and Philippino girls here in Qatar...

That counts....now...Rule 1??

sorry there ''were'' Aussies Production crew on the previous Rig, I have only been out there on an Malaysia owned but crewed by Australian's Rig Tender a few years ago now.

Headlines in N.T.News this week is ''Man puts Fireworks up His Ass'' Cops might fine Him $280.00 { no Crocodile pictures available this week }

Thai firm admits guilt over Montara spill
Xavier La Canna
August 30, 2012

THAILAND'S state-owned PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) is facing up to $1.7 million in fines after pleading guilty to charges relating to the 2009 Montara oil spill off Australia's northwest coast.

At a hearing in Darwin Magistrates Court on Thursday the company pleaded guilty to four charges connected to the oil-well spill in the Timor Sea three years ago.

"From the outset we have admitted responsibility for the incident and deeply regret it occurring," company chief executive Ken Fitzpatrick told reporters after the guilty plea.

"Mistakes were made that should never be repeated."

Oil and gas condensate leaked from the Montara well, off the northern coast of Western Australia, for more than two months from August 21, 2009, in one of Australia's worst-ever oil disasters.

On November 1, during attempts to plug the well, there was an explosion which caused a fire that burned until November 3.

Some oil from the spill reached Indonesian waters.

The company pleaded guilty to three charges related to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act, which each have a maximum penalty of $550,000, and another charge of failing to ensure the operations were conducted in a proper manner, that has a maximum $50,000 fine.

The court is expected tomorrow to detail what the fine will be, although the amount is usually discounted in the case of a guilty plea.

Mr Fitzpatrick said the environmental impact was estimated to have cost the company $40 million to $50 million, although scientific studies were continuing.

He said since the Montara spill PTTEP had transformed its operations and culture and had introduced measures to ensure a similar incident could not occur.

"The hearing today draws a line under the Montara incident and allows us to focus on delivering safe, clean operations in Australia now and in the future," he said.

Director of the Environs Kimberley environment group, Martin Pritchard, said the maximum penalty PTTEP was facing was not a strong enough deterrent for the wealthy company.

"It was an absolutely massive oil spill," Mr Pritchard said.

PTTEP is expected to commence oil production from Montara before Christmas this year.

perthnow.com.au

From the ABC News AU
Company fined $510k for Timor Sea oil spill
Staff reporters
Updated Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:17pm AEST

PHOTO: The 2009 Montara disaster spilled millions of litres of oil into the sea and it took more than two months to stop the leak. (PTTEP)
MAP: Darwin 0800
The company responsible for a major oil spill in the Timor Sea has been fined more than half a million dollars in the Darwin Magistrates Court.

About 70 workers were evacuated from the Montara oil rig, about 250 kilometres off the north-west coast of Western Australia, after a blowout which spewed oil into the Timor Sea.

The 2009 disaster spilled millions of litres of oil into the sea and it took more than two months to stop the leak.

PTTEP Australasia had pleaded guilty to four breaches of the Offshore Petroleum Act, including one which relates to workplace safety.

The Thai government-owned company has a month to pay the $510,000 fine.

Chief Executive Ken Fitzgerald says his company has made changes in the last three years to prevent a disaster like Montara from happening again.

"We have an independent advisory committee that advises me on safety and compliance matters," he said.

"We have revamped our drilling management system and we've introduced a line of sight process that, if it had been in place in 2009, the incident wouldn't have happened."

Mr Fitgerald says the company spent $40 million in cleaning up the spill.

Last month, an Indonesian report on the incident said it is still costing fishing villages in that nation more than $1.5 billion a year.

The Centre for Energy and Environmental Studies in Jakarta said the oil slick drifted across the Timor Sea to parts of Indonesia.

In an interim report, it has claimed that the oil and chemicals used to disperse it are still affecting marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

PTTEP Australasia has flagged the re-opening of the Montara field but has not said how much it will cost to do so or when it will be done.

Originally Posted by mingmong

Chief Executive Ken Fitzgerald

Traditional Thai name!

Spill field back in production
Peter Klinger
June 21, 2013


The West Australian ©

Almost four years after sparking one of Australia's worst environmental disasters, the Montara oil field in the Timor Sea has finally achieved first production for its Thai owner.

PTTEP Australasia, part of Thai giant PTT, said yesterday oil production had begun at Montara and output was gradually building to 21,000 barrels a day.

The oil is flowing from three production wells. A fourth well is due to be completed later this year.

"First oil at Montara is an exciting development for PTTEP Australasia," chief executive Ken Fitzpatrick said.

"It is the culmination of hard work and attention to detail by our project team to deliver safe and clean production."

Yesterday's milestone marks the end of a costly and oft-delayed reconstruction of the Montara project following the August 2009 oil spill, one of the worst in this country's history. An ensuing fire destroyed the Montara wellhead platform and the West Atlas drilling rig.

The disaster happened just nine months after PTTEP bought the project off Gordon Martin's Coogee Resources and minority shareholders for $US170 million.

The rig was subsequently scrapped in Singapore and PTTEP has rebuilt the wellhead platform, including installing a new top side. The production wells are connected at a subsea level to the Montara Venture floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

Project completion has been delayed because of myriad factors, including cyclone activity and the availability of rigs to drill the production wells.

Mr Fitzpatrick said first oil offtake from the FPSO was scheduled for August.

The Montara project is 700km west of Darwin and estimated to contain proven and probable reserves of 45 million barrels.

Mr Fitzpatrick used yesterday's first-production news to declare that PTTEP had transformed "management culture, operational capabilities, safety processes and environmental systems" since the 2009 spill.

He said PTTEP's revised approach had been validated by five independent reviews commissioned by the Federal Government over more than two years.

au.news.yahoo.com