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PTTEP

The Montara Spill Fire burned on a 

partially collapsed Montara wellhead in 

the Timor Sea in November 2009, just 

after a relief well halted an oil leak in 

the sea that had lasted for more than 

10 weeks. 

Multimedia

Tracking the Oil Spill

Related

BP Moves to Fix a Leak as Obama 

Warns of Damage (May 3, 2010) 

This Land: Learning to Love the 

Sea, Then Torn From It (May 3, 

2010) 

Safety Fears Halt Fishing in Areas 

Affected by Spill (May 3, 2010) 

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Relief Well Was Used to Halt Australian Spill

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: May 2, 2010

HONG KONG — While BP tries various short-term efforts to plug a 

leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, the company is preparing to 

drill a relief well as a backup plan. BP hopes to drill that well 

diagonally to intersect the original one below the seabed and then 

flood it with mud and concrete to stop the uncontrolled flow. 

Although the idea sounds simple, the 

experience with a similar spill last year 

near Australia shows just how difficult 

it can be to execute the maneuver. 

“It’s like finding a needle in a 

haystack,” said Rachel Siewert, an 

Australian senator who is a member of the country’s 

opposition Greens Party and is critical of the oil industry. 

The Australian accident, known as the Montara spill, began 

Aug. 21 with a blowout of high-pressure oil similar to the 

one in the gulf. With the well spewing 17,000 to 85,000 

gallons per day, precious weeks passed before the relief 

wells were started. When efforts got under way, the first 

four attempts — drilled on Oct. 6, 13, 17 and 24 — missed 

the original well. 

A fifth attempt finally intersected the original on Nov. 1, 

and about 3,400 barrels of heavy mud were pumped 

through the relief well into the base of the original well. The

spewing oil finally stopped Nov. 3 — more than 10 weeks 

after the original explosion. 

BP intends to drill a similar relief well close to the site 

where the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up and sank 

in the gulf nearly two weeks ago. The company says the well

could take months to complete. In the meantime, the well 

continues to leak 210,000 gallons of oil a day, according to 

the latest official estimates. 

The Montara accident resembled the Gulf of Mexico 

accident in that both started with problems in the well 

itself, and it proved very hard to stop without resorting to 

further underground drilling, said Elmer P. Danenberger 

III, who was the top American regulator of offshore oil 

drilling until his retirement on Jan. 2. 

“There are clearly some similarities,” Mr. Danenberger said.

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Relief Well Was Used to Halt Australian Spill - NYTimes.com Page 1 of 4

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/us/03montara.html 11/30/2011
U.S. Coast Guard

The Gulf of Mexico Spill Response 

crews battled a fire on the Deepwater 

Horizon offshore oil rig in the Gulf of 

Mexico last month. The rig sank April 

22. Eleven workers died and three 

were critically injured. 

The New York Times

The gulf spill site, top, and the 2009 

Timor Sea spill site. 

Drilling the relief well proved tricky in the Montara spill, 

which was located in Australian waters in the Timor Sea, 

between northwest Australia and Indonesia. 

The drilling team was trying to hit a well casing less than 10

inches in diameter at a depth 1.6 miles below the seabed, 

according to testimony this spring before an Australian 

government commission of inquiry. 

The BP well has an even skinnier casing, reportedly 

measuring seven inches in diameter. 

The companies involved in the Australian and American 

accidents are mostly different. In the Gulf of Mexico, BP, 

based in London, leased the drilling platform from 

Transocean, a Swiss company. 

In the Timor case, it was PTT Exploration and Production, a

Thai company, which had leased the West Atlas drilling rig 

and its crew from Atlas Drilling, an affiliate of Seadrill 

Management, a Norwegian company. 

PTT’s and Seadrill’s offices were closed for the weekend and

their officials could not be reached for comment. In 

documents submitted to the commission of inquiry, PTT 

acknowledged that it should have used more concrete for a 

temporary plug injected into the well when drilling was 

briefly halted before the blowout, but maintained that the 

basic design of the plug conformed to industry standards. 

Atlas and PTT have disagreed in their submissions to the 

commission over whether PTT employees made an error in unscrewing a pressurecontaining cap on top of the well shortly before the blowout. 

Halliburton, a major oil services company based in Houston, was involved in the concrete 

work as a contractor in both the Montara and Gulf of Mexico spills. 

A Halliburton employee, David A. Doeg, testified to the Australian commission that he 

made the problem worse at the Montara well by repumping concrete during an incorrectly 

handled procedure before the blowout. But Mr. Doeg testified that he was taking direction 

from PTT managers. 

Halliburton’s role in the Gulf of Mexico disaster has also come under scrutiny. In a 

statement Friday, the company confirmed that it conducted concrete operations on the rig 

shortly before the accident but said it was “premature and irresponsible to speculate” on 

the cause. Halliburton said it was cooperating with investigations into the spill. 

The Montara spill differed from the gulf spill in some ways that made it easier to stop, and 

in other ways that made it harder to stop. To begin with, the Montara drilling platform was

operating in water that was 250 feet deep, while the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig leased 

by BP was on a seabed 5,000 feet deep. 

But the seabed geology around the base of Deepwater Horizon has been well mapped, 

which would help any effort to drill a relief well there, Mr. Danenberger said. The Montara 

spill occurred during initial exploration of a seabed that is less well known. 

BP is also pursuing other options, including continuing its efforts trying to activate a 

malfunctioning, 40-foot-tall blowout preventer on the ocean floor and trying to cover the 

undersea leak with a dome that would capture the oil so that it could be piped safely to the 

surface. 

The Montara oil well had no blowout preventer on the sea floor. 

The Montara oil spill last year was Australia’s third worst, after tanker spills in 1975 and 

1991, and its worst from offshore oil production. 

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Relief Well Was Used to Halt Australian Spill - NYTimes.com Page 2 of 4

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/us/03montara.html 11/30/2011
A version of this article appeared in print on May 3, 2010, on page A14 

of the New York edition.

The Australian accident had a smaller environmental impact than the gulf spill is likely to 

have. In the Montara case, the oil spilled into the ocean far from land. Small quantities 

reportedly washed up in Indonesia, but most of it dispersed on the open ocean after 

forming a thin sheen covering up to 10,000 square miles. 

The commission of inquiry into the Montara spill was originally scheduled to issue its 

report by Friday, but has delayed it to analyze the complex causes and effects of the spill. 

The Australian government is separately drafting legislation for tighter oversight of the 

offshore drilling industry. 

Ms. Siewert said in a telephone interview this weekend that her party opposed any 

immediate move to change the rules for the industry. The Green Party believes that when 

the results of the commission’s inquiry are released, they should provide support for even 

tougher regulations than anything proposed so far, she said. 

The Montara and Gulf of Mexico spills are not the only ones involving offshore drilling 

platforms. The Ixtoc oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico suffered a blowout in 1979 and 

leaked oil off the Mexican state of Campeche; some of the oil reached the Texas coast as 

well. 

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