Singapore, 29 July (Argus) — Thailand's state-controlled upstream firm PTTEP will consider a demand for compensation from Indonesia arising from last year's Montara oil spill, saying it will assess any claim based on evidence and its merits.

The Montara well, in Australia's sector of the Timor Sea, started leaking in August last year and was not plugged until November. But Indonesia said only this month that it will seek compensation for pollution to its East Nusa Tenggara province, in the far southeast of the country.

Australia's government is still to release the findings of an inquiry into the spill, one of the country's worst, amid an election campaign for federal elections on 21 August. The Montara Commission of Inquiry was to investigate the adequacy and effectiveness of Australia's regulatory regime connected with the project, along with safety practices. The Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent massive Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has increasingly focused attention on the regulation and safety of upstream firms' offshore operations.

PTTEP owns 100pc of Montara, which it bought last year through the takeover of Australian upstream group Coogee Resources. It had planned to restart the 35,000 b/d field next year, with initial cargoes at least destined for Thailand's refining system to reduce its imports of alternative light sweet grades.

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