West Atlas: a mixture of water vapour and gas billows over the jack-up in this image taken from a footage shot by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
- Delay hits Montara salvage work
- 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
PTTEP prepares to spray Montara
Specialised fire risk prevention control equipment has been loaded onto two vessels which are set to head to the Montara field blowout site in the Timor Sea, field operator PTTEP said.
In a statement, the Thai operator said the two dynamically positioned (DP) vessels are scheduled to leave Darwin tomorrow morning and arrive at Montara on Friday morning.
Subject to a safety evaluation, the high capacity pump deluge equipment aboard the vessels, which arrived by 747 from Singapore today, will be used to spray the wellhead platform and the West Atlas jack-up in a bid to cut fire risk.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) which is coordinating the response to the oil spill is using two aerial dispersant aircraft for spraying and combating the spill, as well as the vessel Lady Gerda which is surface spraying on the spill.
AMSA said it apepars that the dispersant is helping to break down the oil slick from the blowout.
Meanwhile, the West Triton jack-up is expected to reach the Lombok Strait on Thursday. It will then leave the Java Sea under tow and head into the Timor Sea.
The rig is on schedule to reach the Montara field on Tuesday, 8 September. It will be used to drill a relief well which will pump heavy mud into the damaged well bore, plugging the flow of oil and gas from the well.
- Upstream's coverage of the Montara blowout is available in the related stories section to the right of this article.