The Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre says the extent of an oil slick off Australia's north-west coast is still not known and that more oil is continuing to flow out.
Federal authorities are preparing for a major clean-up after 69 workers were yesterday evacuated from the West Atlas Offshore drilling rig, 690 kilometres west of Darwin.
Ivan Skibinski, from the Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre, says 50,000 litres of chemicals have been sent to Darwin today to be used by Hercules aircraft on the spill this afternoon.
He says the Hercules will take about 20,000 litres at a time to spray the spill and that it is enough chemical to deal with the size the spill is expected to take.
"That indicates that the oil is breaking down naturally and any application of dispersement would only enhance the breakdown of the slick," he said.
But he says the size of the slick often does not indicate the volume of the spill and more oil is continuing to flow out.
The company concerned, PTTEP Australasia, says gas and oil started leaking early yesterday morning from its offshore drill, but it says it does not know how or when the leak can be shut down.
There are still plenty of unanswered questions about the incident and its environmental implications.
The drilling rig is about 250 kilometres off the Kimberley and the Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre says oil is unlikely to reach the coast.
The centre says the condensate could be dispersed relatively easily, but the centre cannot make a proper assessment until more is known.
Poisonous
One rig worker who spoke to the ABC on the condition of anonymity said that colleagues detected a gas leak early yesterday before they saw bubbling around one of the platform's 1,200-metre-deep drilling holes.
Poisonous hydrogen sulfide began leaking from the area and sparked the evacuation, he said.
He says the plug blocking the hole released soon after and within two hours he could see the slick had grown to eight kilometres as he was being flown to the mainland.
Federal authorities have been referring all media inquiries to PTTEP Australasia.
The company has not provided anyone for interview, but last night chief financial officer Jose Martins gave an audio news release.
"The rig is situated approximately 690 kilometres west of Darwin in the Northern Territory, and 250 kilometres north-west of Truscott in Western Australia," he said.
"PTTEP is continually planning to determine how the leak can be brought under control so the West Atlas can be safely reboarded and begun to be restored to working order.
"Approximately 40 barrels of oil were discharged from the well head in the initial incident, some of it into the sea.
"Since then, condensate has been discharged at pressure and dispersed in the gas stream. It is not known how much condensate is in the gas.
"Weather and sea conditions in the area remain calm. This spill is likely to be carried away from the Australian coast."
'Limited information'
The marine spokeswoman for the Australian Greens, Rachel Siewert, says PTTEP is holding back.
"There's limited information. It seems the Federal Government's relying on statements from the company," she said.
"The company doesn't appear to be sharing the full amount of information.
"And on top of that, it appears that planes with chemical dispersant aren't going to arrive on site until at least 24 hours after the leak occurred and we don't know the extent of the leaks because we're dependent on the company to find out what's going on."
The dispersant had to be flown up from Victoria. Senator Siewert says resources to combat spills should be based in northern Australia.
"We should be putting out emergency response equipment much closer to those sites so that we don't have to wait 24 hours," she said.
"Just imagine if this was happening a bit closer to the Kimberley coast. Given the extent of the tidal situation off the Kimberley coast, potential adverse weather conditions, that oil could be on shore in a future scenario before we even scrambled the planes."
Tags: disasters-and-accidents, maritime-accidents, emergency-incidents, australia, nt, darwin-0800, wa
