Australian authorities said yesterday they had scaled back a threeweek operation to disperse oil and gas leaking from a Timor Sea drilling rig operated by Thailand's PTTEP company.
Oil and gas has been leaking from the West Atlas drilling platform,690km west of Darwin, since an undersea pipe ruptured on Aug 21.
The slick from the rig is 170km from the coast but is reducing in size and requiring less dispersant, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said. Amsa has been using aircraft flying from Darwin each day to keep the spill in check.
Amsa said it could scale back the cleanup operation now that a mobile rig was preparing to drill 2.6km into the sea bed to plug up the leaking well with drilling mud. PTTEP expects the drilling to take at least four weeks.
Last week Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said concerns about the environmental impact of the leak had been overstated. But environmentalists said it already posed a threat to whales,dolphins and turtles, and warned that the slick could easily reach the coast and cause ecological damage.
PTTEP, which has not revealed what caused the leak, said it has deployed 300 workers to clean up the spill.
PTTEP director Jose Martins said the leak was diminishing and that his company would pay for the clean-up.
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