Clean up: AMSA staff use booms to trap the slick from Montara
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Montara plug 'may take three more bids'
Efforts to plug the blown-out well bore at the Montara development, off Australia's remote north-west coast, may require as many as three more attempts and take several more weeks, it emerged today.
Oil, gas and condensate has been leaking from the well, at the Montara well head platform, in the Timor Sea, since a blow out on 21 August.
ALERT Well Control, which is attempting to intersect a 25 centimetre diameter well casing 2700 metres below the sea bed and plugging it with heavy mud, is confident it will succeed.
ALERT managing director Mike Allcorn said today a number of attempts might be required before the well was plugged.
"It may require one, two or three passes to be successful," Allcorn told the Australian Associated Press today.
Allcorn added a number of contingencies were in place should the attempts fail.
Meanwhile, PTTEP chief financial officer Jose Martins said the Thailand player would make a formal announcement to the Thai Stock Exchange tomorrow on the cost of the spill, which is estimated to carry a $A177 million (US$160 million) price tag so far.
Some of the cost would be borne by PTTEP's insurance company but the company faced a significant exposure.
Martins declined comment on the cause of the blow out ahead of a government inquiry into the spill.
PTTEP has so far stumped up A$5.3 million for the clean-up and containment effort carried out by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
Serious concerns have been voiced by environmentalists, commercial fishermen and the federal opposition about the handling of the spill and its potential long-term effects on marine wildlife and the area's ecosystem.
Earlier this week, the Indonesian government said the spill had reached its waters, destroying harvest-ready seaweed.