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Pertamina cleans beaches in Balikpapan of possible oil pollution
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A man cleans up Benua Patra Beach after a nearby oil spill in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, on April 2, 2018. (AFP/-)
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tate-owned oil and gas company Pertamina has cleaned several beaches in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, of what appears to be traces of an oil spill.
Pertamina deployed its Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) team on Sunday to clean up oil floating on the water and inspect the company’s facilities, according to its spokesman Roberth Marchelino Verieza.
“We’ve received information regarding oil spills and have found that there are some traces of oil in the area. We also checked our facilities to ensure that we’re not the one causing the oil trail,” he said as quoted by tribunnews.com.
Pertamina’s inspection, according to Roberth, found no traces of oil at the company’s jetty and oil catchers.
The Balikpapan Environment Agency has recorded five oil spills over the course of two years, two of which occurred in 2018 and three last year.
Sunday’s incident occurred at around 5 p.m., with pollution detected on the four beaches of Monpera, Kemala, Adi Pratama and Kilang Mandiri, agency head Suryanto said.
He added that the agency was still investigating the incident by burning the floating substance, but said it did not react to the fire.
“[We’ve conducted testing] from the beach of Monpera to Benua Patra. We held fire to the water surface but it didn’t burn,” he said, adding that the floating black substance could be wastewater rather than oil.
However, the agency has asked Pertamina to clean up the pollution as the company owns spill kits and water treatment plants to process hazardous waste. (mpr)
