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PTTEP Australasia accepts blame for oil spill
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, clearing conditions for trillions of rupiah in compensation for Indonesia
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hailand-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, clearing conditions for trillions of rupiah in compensation for Indonesia.
“We met with them and they confessed. Actually, we needed that confession,” Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The company will hold another meeting with the Indonesian government to discuss the extent of the contamination, Freddy said.
“We’re still demanding Rp 23 trillion [US$2.56 billion] in compensation from the company for the damage,” he said.
Previously, Rote Ndao Regent Leonard Haning said he was seeking more than Rp 7 trillion in compensation for environmental damage and economic losses to the regency, which has been worst hit by the disaster.
PTTEP, however, has never publicly acknowledged it would pay, although a number of Indonesian officials had claimed that the company was willing to pay.
An Indonesia negotiator said the acknowledgment would allow Indonesia to claim trillions of rupiah in environmental damages and economic losses if not the maximum demand, even if the case was brought to international court.
“It can be used as our argument in the negotiations,” he 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.
The spill reportedly affected 38 percent of Indonesia’s marine territory in the Timor Sea. Local fishermen’s catches reportedly dropped and thousands of tons of shallow water fish died, while marine mammals, including whales, also fell victim.
Chief Indonesian negotiator Masnellyarti Hilman earlier said the total area affected by the oil spill continued to increase.
“Satellite imaging shows the impacted area is only 28,662 square kilometers but our field findings indicate the spill has spread to more than 70,341 square kilometers,” she said.
Masnellyarti said Indonesia had spent Rp 1.9 billion on operational costs such as surveys, meetings and visits to Perth.
The proposal the government will send to PTTEP includes calculations on the damage to the ecosystem, she said.
“We have computed the need for the restoration of ecosystems such as mangrove, coral reefs, sea grass and seaweed,” Masnellyarti said.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) said it would take 10 years for the coral reef and mangrove ecosystems to recover while marine life would require two years.
