Update, Tuesday: PTTEP announced Tuesday that the mud-pumping program was successful and the leak was shut off. Most of the fire has been extinguished and the remaining bits of fire on the platform will soon burn themselves out.
AN OFFSHORE OIL-DRILLING RIG NEAR AUSTRALIA that has been leaking for ten weeks erupted in flames yesterday as attempts were being made to fix the leak. The platform is 155 miles off the coast of Australia in the Timor Sea and has been leaking product at the rate of approx. 400 gallons per day since August 21. The operators of the rig, PTTEP Australasia was preparing a mud mixture to pump down the well hole when the fire erupted and spread up onto the platform itself.
Reuters
They are expecting to pour 4,000 barrels of the mud into the hole sometime on Tuesday with the expectation that it will shut off the flow of oil that is fueling the blaze.
The Australian press is reporting:
Federal resources minister Martin Ferguson said that once the spill is contained he would launch an official inquiry. “Our requirement is to assess the cause of the accident and any lessons to be learnt, and that could lead to a change in the regulatory environment,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
Ferguson later told reporters in Melbourne that if PTTEP was “found to have been at fault with respect to any of their responsibilities, then any potential action will be appropriately considered at the time.”
The oil slick from the rig, about 150 miles off Australia’s north-west coast, now stretches across thousands of milesof remote ocean. Indonesia said last week that thousands of dead fish and clumps of oil have been found drifting near its coastline.
Prime minister Kevin Rudd said today he was “deeply disturbed” at the latest turn of events on the rig, signalling the government’s rising frustration that fixing the spill is taking so long.
The Associated Press has some striking raw video of the fire taken from a news helicopter:
PTTEP is based in Bangkok and is Thailand’s only publicly-traded oil exploration company and has been futilely attempting to repair the leak for the entire ten weeks. The platform is leased to PTTEP by a Norwegian company, Seadrill Ltd. who are saying that already the damage to the platform is so severe that it cannot be repaired or used again. Right now they concerned that it may collapse completely.
Bloomberg News REPORTS:
The West Atlas rig, which is fully insured for $200 million, is a “total wreck,” (a spokeswoman) said, declining to name the insurance company. The jack-up rig, the type most commonly used in shallower waters, was in October leased at a rate of $255,000 a day, according to Seadrill’s Web site.
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