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RI set to demand compensation for oil spill
A negotiating team from Indonesia will meet the management of a Thai oil-rig operator in Perth on Tuesday to clarify claims that an oil spill that began last year is damaging areas in the Timor Sea
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negotiating team from Indonesia will meet the management of a Thai oil-rig operator in Perth on Tuesday to clarify claims that an oil spill that began last year is damaging areas in the Timor Sea.
It will be the first official meeting between the parties since the PTTEP Australasia oil rig exploded in August 2009 on the Montara oil field off of Australia's north coast.
Indonesia's team will be headed by deputy minister for environmental damage control at the Environment Ministry Masnellyarti Hilman.
The team, set up last week, includes Havas Oegroseno, director general for international treaties and legal affairs at the Foreign Ministry and Gellwynn Jusuf, director general of research at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.
"We will show *the results* of our fact finding *mission on impacts of the oil spill* and compare it with their findings *from PTTEP*," Masnellyarti said Monday.
"We will inform them of our plan to demand compensation from the oil spill. We are ready if they want to resolve it in or out of court."
The team said it was still calculating the total financial losses it would claim from PTTEP, a subsidiary of PTT, Thailand's state-owned oil and gas company.
Indonesia's Environment Ministry said the level of pollutants in the Timor Sea had exceeded tolerable levels set by Indonesian government. The ministry measured the quality of water in five places.
It said total suspended density had reached 147 milligram per liter. The tolerable level is 20 mg/l.
An environmental agency in East Nusa Tenggara said it had found visual and chemical evidence of the oil spill.
"We want to recalculate direct and indirect damages such as how long it will take to restore the damaged ecosystem," Masnellyarti said.
She said that Indonesia would prefer for the case to be settled out of court. "But, we are ready if the company wants to take it to court," she said.
The Montara field was developed by the Norwegian and Bermudan-owned Seadrill, and operated by PTTEP Australasia, a unit of PTT.
The company's oil platform exploded, releasing more than 500,000 liters of crude oil every day into the Timor Sea.
Thirty-eight percent of Indonesia's sea territory in the Timor Sea was affected by the spill, local fishermen's catches dropped and thousands of tons of shallow water fish and many whales died.
The spill also destroyed seaweed farms cultivated by coastal communities in East Nusa Tenggara.
Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi earlier said the government would seek initial compensation of Rp 500 billion (US$54 million) for direct losses from the disaster.
Maritime law expert Hasyim Djalal said that Indonesia could claim three kinds of damages due to the oil spill, including direct damage, consequential damages and environmental losses.
"The environmental damage will be more complicated since it needs assessment. The impacts cannot be calculated within 2 days," he said.
Assistant deputy minister for civil enforcement Rosa Vivien Ratnawati said that the government would use the 2009 environmental law and the United Nations Convention on Law of Sea as a legal basis for the claims.
