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ndonesia and Australia will demand that a Thai oil-rig operator be held responsible for an oil spill in the Timor Sea that damaged the environment of nearby Indonesian territory, says the foreign minister.

After a meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on Thursday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said that the two countries would cooperate to ensure that PTTEP Australasia was held responsible for an oil spill that occurred in the Montara field off Australia’s north coast.

PTTEP Australasia is a subsidiary of PTT, a Thai oil and gas company.

The company’s oil platform exploded and spilled more than 500,000 liters of crude oil each day into in the Timor Sea in August 2009.

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 whales died.

The spill also destroyed seaweed farms cultivated by coastal communities in East Nusa Tenggara.

It will take years to clean up the spill, according to experts.

Marty said both countries would file demands that PTTEP Australasia be held accountable. Australia and Indonesia have already communicated with the government of Thailand on the issue, he added.

Indonesia and Australia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on oil pollution preparedness in 1996, which had been used as the legal framework for communication during the spill, he said.

Jakarta has decided to establish an advocacy team to communicate with the PTTEP Australasia, said Marty.