Montara oil slick: salvage operations suffered a setback with the delay of key vessels and equipment.
- Rudd brands Montara slick 'appalling'
- Relief well for slick at Montara
- Glitch delays West Triton sailaway
- West Triton on its way to Montara
- PTTEP works on Montara clean-up
- Montara leak 'may take months to plug'
- Pipelay continues at Montara
- Java Constructor leaves Montara
- Leak forced evacuation from West Atlas
Delay hits Montara salvage work
PTTEP Australasia said the arrival of the chartered Boeing 747 aircraft carrying equipment for the salvage work on Montara oil spill has been delayed to this morning.
The delay is not expected to affect the scheduled operation to cap the Montara wellhead platform, PTTEP said in a statement issued late yesterday evening.
The equipment being flown from Singapore will be fitted aboard a dynamically positioned vessel, which will be used with a second vessel as part of the fire risk prevention control at the wellhead platform.
Both vessels are expected to depart Darwin late on September 2 and arrive at Montara on Friday morning.
Other than the two vessels, PTTEP has also chartered jack-up rig West Triton to drill a relief well to stop the ongoing flow of oil and gas from the leaking well.
The jack-up is due to arrive on 8 September.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Saturday the slick was within a rectangular area measuring about 25 nautical miles (46 kilometres) by 70 nautical miles (130 kilometres). It also said coverage of oil within that area has lessened.
The oil spill stemmed from a blowout, which occurred last week on the Montara wellhead platform. The jack-up West Atlas was drilling a well through the Montara platform when a well bore which had previously been drilled blew out.
- Full Upstream coverage of the Montara blowout is available in the related stories section to the right of this article.