On the job: the West Triton at the Montara wellhead platform
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PTTEP to try again after plug bid fails
PTTEP's first attempt to plug a leak from the Montara field, in the Timor Sea off north-west Australia, has failed.
A wellbore at the field has been leaking since a blowout at the site on 21 August.
A spokeswoman for Thailand-based operator PTTEP said the attempt to pump heavy mud into the leaking well today had not succeeded.
"We will attempt another pass but that sequence takes about another four days," she said.
A drilling team aboard the West Triton jack-up has been drilling a relief well which will intersect a piece of steel casing about 25 centimetres in diameter, about 2600 metres below the seabed.
PTTEP Australasia's chief financial officer Jose Martins said: "The intercept operation may involve several passes and complex calculations using sophisticated equipment and software to narrow down the exact location of the leaking well casing.
"Each pass narrows that zone of uncertainty.
"If the first approach did not succeed, each successive pass sequence takes up to four days to complete.
"This would mean a second pass being able to be undertaken on Friday or Saturday."