The director of oil firm PTTEP Australasia has admitted that the fire burning on the West Atlas oil rig is out of control.
José Martins said that because of safety concerns, the company would not be in a position to attempt to kill the leaking Montara well and stop the fire until tomorrow morning.
“The fire is out of control,” said Mr Martins, who described the latest setback as “extremely frustrating”.
No personnel had been aboard the West Atlas rig since it was evacuated on 21 August, Mr Martins said. The fire broke out yesterday after an attempt to stop the leak by injecting heavy mud into the relief well, from the West Triton rig 2 km away.
Mr Martins said that injecting the mud may have triggered the fire by causing changes to the volatile material being ejected on the West Atlas rig.
But he insisted that the best strategy to bring the blaze under control was to persist with injecting heavy mud, to kill the well and stop the flow of oil and gas.
PTTEP Australasia had initially planned a fresh well kill attempt today, but has delayed it until tomorrow amid safety fears.
Well control experts on board the West Triton rig are today mixing the roughly 4000 barrels of heavy mud needed for a fresh attempt to kill the well. It is expected to take until this evening to prepare the required quantity, Mr Martins said.
Finally killing the well “may require another attempt at a different quality of mud”, requiring an extra day, Mr Martins said.
Studies of the area around the fire suggest that no more oil is spilling into the sea, because it was burning off in the fire, he said.
Mr Martins said the company did not yet know the extent of the damage to the Montara wellhead platform, and the West Atlas rig, which is owned by another company. “Until the fire is stopped and we can get access we can’t assess the damage.”
Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said the Government remains “deeply concerned” about the disaster, but that he was satisfied the latest attempt to kill the well should be delayed until tomorrow.
“Some operations can only be carried out in daylight hours,” he said.
PTTEP Australia has attempted to plug the well leaking up to 400 barrels a day off the WA coast since the spill began on August 21.
“If (PTTEP) are found to have been at fault with respect to any of their responsibilities then any potential action will be appropriately considered at the time,” Mr Ferguson said today.
He said some of the world’s leading experts were working to drill into the well and plug the leak.
The Government will conduct an inquiry into the spill once the fire is extinguished and the leak is finally plugged, Mr Ferguson said.
A survey released on Friday suggested hundreds of marine animals were at immediate risk because of the spill, but Mr Ferguson said it was “too early” to assess any long-term environmental impacts.
The Greens have called for Mr Ferguson’s resignation over his handling of the emergency, describing the minister as a “parrot” of the oil industry.
“Just allow those involved in the dangerous, delicate operation to get on with the job of plugging the well free of political gamesmanship,” Mr Ferguson urged.
Greens leader Bob Brown says the Government's responsibility for assisting the clean up had failed under Mr Ferguson.
"He is an oil industry parrot and he should resign," Senator Brown said.
From the outset, the resources minister had been saying the oil should evaporate naturally and that he was proud of the industry's record.
"And as the disaster's unfolded, it appears that Martin Ferguson as minister has been singly obstructing greater action," Senator Brown said.
Environment Minister Peter Garrett has been concerned about the spill for weeks, but no commensurate action had been taken by the Government.
If the spill had occurred off the coast of Sydney or Melbourne, the Government would have taken over the responsibility of the spill from the beginning, he said.
"That hasn't happened, the minister is responsible and he should go."
Mr Feguson said a full inquiry would be held into the Timor Sea disaster.
He said the first priority was to complete the plugging of the spill first, and remove the source of fuel from the fire.
"It's clearly had an impact on the standing of the oil and gas industry in Australia," Mr Ferguson said toda.
"Once the well is filled, the platform is made safe, I will conduct a full and independent inquiry to actually assess the cause of the incident and the manner in which it has been handled in the last 10 weeks."
Asked if the Government was under pressure over the incident, Mr Ferguson said "oh clearly".
"But the events of yesterday proved the National Petroleum Safety Authority was right, no one has been allowed on that platform since the first day of the incident on the 21st of August because the health and safety assessment clearly indicated that a fire could occur."
Mr Ferguson said the oil and gas industry had a proud record when it comes to a low number of oil spills.
"We've had 1500 wells drilled in Australian waters since 1984 and this is the first major incident."
The resources minister said in order to be able to conduct any inquiry into the incident, he had to change the existing regulatory framework to prohibit companies challenging investigations.
About 300 to 400 barrels per day have leaked into the ocean more than 200km off WA's Kimberley coast, Mr Ferguson said, but 70 to 80 per cent had been mopped up since last Monday.
The leaking well casing, 2.6km under the sea bed, was finally intercepted at 8am yesterday.
Mr Martins said workers had started to pump heavy mud into the hole to stop the flow when at 12.10pm a fire broke out on the H1 well.
He said the fire was being fuelled by oil and gas and the only way to stop it was to plug the leak.
"The measures which we have been able to take so far can only mitigate the fire, they will not stop the fire," Mr Martins said. "The best way to stop the fire is to complete the well-kill and stop the flow of oil and gas at the surface of the H1 well, cutting off the fuel source for the fire."
The Federal Government has revealed that hundreds of birds and marine species were at immediate risk from the spill.
While the total effects of the spill were yet to be determined, a government report found scientists had found dead and dying birds and sea snakes in the area.
They also counted 462 whales and dolphins, 2,801 birds, 62 sea snakes and 25 turtles in the affected areas over five days of observation.
Greens call for minister's sacking over oil leak
MICHAEL HOPKIN and PETER WILLIAMS, The West Australian
November 2, 2009, 8:23 am
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16 Comments
It never ceases to amaze me why the uninformed are so vocal without having any understanding of what it takes to intersect a target as small as 10" in diameter, 2,000 meters deep (that's 2 kilometers for the morons)from a location some 2 kilometers away and expect it to be successful first time round. As an industry insider of some 40 years, I know what it takes to achieve such a difficult task and it is only significant technological advances of recent years that allowed it to happen. In the 1990's it would have been near on impossible to directionally drill into the target with any degree of accuracy, in the timeframe they have completed this task. Leave the ongoing investigation and technical comments to the professionals. There are enough highly qualified people out there to decide whether the responses were adequate or not.
To fiechter, if you don't like it leave. From a WESTERN AUSTRALIAN.
It is just like the oil spills in the US where the oil company just pay bunch of people and cleaning crews for the sole purpose of giving the impression that they are doing "something" for the purpose of PR. The Australian government SHOULD have jumped to protect the environment and charge the oil company for the cleaning bills. If they refused, some other company would gladly pay for it and take over the task of extracting the oil.
Good it happen in West Australia?now lets ged rid of all West Australians Moron Dumb Race
Looking at why it occurred in the first place is more important to make sure it doesn't happen again, PTTEP will foot the bill for years to come to clean this up. In the meantime if they have similar infrastructure in place on other platforms an urgent safety audit and upgrade to ensure no other event like this occurs would be more productive than banging on about who is to blame etc...
Travis I'm no expert and I can appreciate the difficulty of the task But one thing they didn't do soon enough was contain the spill. It wasn't until just last week I think that they put out booms, skim the oil off the surface to be injected into a well. This should have been done from the start, hopefully in future it will be standard procedure to do so
Hands up any naysayers here who have never used petroleum products. No-one? So calm down and think it through. As with most things in life we must take the good with the bad. We fly in airplanes to travel, sometimes they crash and kill hundreds of people; we don't call for a Minister to resign every time. We drive cars, cross the street ... to get where we want to go; sometimes fatal accidents occur but we still do. Same with petroleum production. Everyday 100 million barrels of oil is produced & consumed. That's a huge lot, so credits should be given to the oil industry that accident rates are already far lower than airplane crashes, car drivers getting killed. To enforce a zero-accident policy would make petrol & gas ten times more unaffordable -- anyone in favour of that?
Everyones an expert when it all goes bad... the problem is a little bit of information in inexperienced hands leads to ill informed rants and calls for someones head. I work in the oilfield and have been told in confidence how it went down from someone who was there when it all happened. There were no shortcuts taken, all procedures followed as is normal practice and required by law. There is no way that they could have predicted what happened, heinsite is a wonderful thing. Even if they were prepared for what happened it would have been difficult and dangerous to carry out. The companies involved did the right thing, evacuate personnel, assess what was happening. Make a plan and try to implement it. Yes it is an environmental disaster which we still don't know the full extent of damage, if this happened before and no one had learnt from it... sure then scream for someones head. As it stands now there will be a thorough investigation from which no one can hide. All I can say is good work to all the guys who have been out there fixing this and the same goes to the companies involved. It's in these worst case scenarios that you start to appreciate all the drills and training that you've been put through.
Considering the vast developments in oil and gas exports that we have banked our future wealth on, I am amazed that such an utterly mismanaged catastrophe would be allowed to continue for so long - surely this proves that the environmental impact of the gorgon project and others in the formerly pristine kimberly will be disastrous
It's a lesson learned. Are we prepared if this happen close to Barrow Island? Bet something similar will happen. It is the peril of the oil industry.
Shocked, Stunned, Taken Aback....When this is all over (if ever), I hope the lessons learnt and the necessary infrastructure is permanently in place for responsible oil spill response in the Timor Sea (Rest of this planet). Just because it is not a population center does not mean that there is room for complacency. We all know that the oil and gas industry is here to stay and it benefits our economy, so we must ensure that all best work practices are enforced. Oil companies must contribute to a response and environmental fund, it is not ok to just destroy an ecological system and leave an intrusive scar. We must respect, protect and preserve our wildlife. Other species on this planet cannot be ignored as collaterol, damage as mankind ravages the planet in it's search for mineral wealth and consumption... Leave James Price point Alone, go to Port Headland, The Kimberley Coastline must be lisrted as a heritage sight.
I wish someone had considered the possibility of corrosion in this event. In industry, we have a matrix that shows that a possible risk with very high consequences must be classified as "HIghly dangerous". Corrosionis such and still we don't take corrosion engineers as seriously as they should be.These are my personal views ofcourse! Reza
Somewhere along the line the penny just has to drop! No matter how good the planning, something was almost certain to go wrong, and it has! The result is right in front of us. If we are really lucky, the next mess will be just offshore, and no-one will be able to obfuscate over the extent of the pollution because it will be right on our beaches, killing off wildlife. We are going to run out of oil and fossil fuels eventually - some say we are already at peak oil and on the way to running out. We may as well abandon fossil fuels now and make the move to green and renewable energy, whilst we still have a planet to save!
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OK Let's say the Australian Government Jumps In. How where they going to avoid this catastophe? When was a government better at doing anything? The environment will be cleaned up. What part of "PTTEP will cover all cost associated with this clean-up," don't you understand?
this a an absolute joke!! ..the Australian government should have jumped in early on to avoid such an expensive environmental catastrophe or AT LEAST have some plans to stop this sort of thing happening or getting out of hand when it does, like surrounding the spill with a floating barricade or SOMETHING (ANYTHING!!). Personally i think as a sign of goodwill Chevron/shell/exxonmobil should clean this mess up (if they want to exploit barrow island for its resources), its not like they haven't already destroyed large areas with spills themselves.