Experts approve oil spill response: AMSA

International experts have endorsed the government's response to an oil spill off
Western Australia's Kimberley coast, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA)
says.
An oil slick remains floating in the Timor Sea, near the West Atlas drilling rig,
where a nearby wellhead began leaking oil and gas on Friday.
Aircraft are continuing to spray dispersant over the slick, containing the spill,
AMSA said in a statement on Tuesday.
AMSA said oil spill experts from the UK had endorsed its response to what could be
an environmental disaster.
PTTEP Australasia, the Thai company that contracted the rig, has said it would take
at least seven weeks to plug the leak, the cause of which is unknown.
The company said an offshore drilling rig, currently moored at the port of Batam in
Indonesia, was expected to take 17 days to arrive at the site near Ashmore Reef in
the Timor Sea, 250km off WA's northwest coast.
PTTEP said it continued to consider other potential plans to stop the oil spill,
including the use of other rigs in the area.
Major oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum on Tuesday offered the use of a rig.
Woodside chief executive Don Voelte told journalists after a briefing in Perth that
he had contacted the federal government to offer the use of a drill rig and
emergency response team.
"We have contacted the government and have put all of Woodside's resources at their
use if they want them," Mr Voelte said.
"We've got a rig they can take if they want a rig."
The cause of the leak, which began on Friday morning, remains unknown.
Seadrill, the company that contracts the West Atlas rig to PTTEP, said it wanted to
emphasise the leak did not emanate from the rig.
"The hydrocarbon discharge originates from a well on the Montara wellhead platform,"
Seadrill spokesman Simon Johnson said.
"There has not been any stability issue or incidents on the West Atlas drilling unit
before or after the evacuation of personnel."
Mr Johnson said the wellhead was metres away from the drill rig but the problem was
likely to be sub-surface and several kilometres below it.
"We can't rule it out 100 per cent but it is almost certainly unconnected to the
activities we were doing," Mr Johnson told AAP.
The Montara wellhead is a separate structure to the rig, which works over the top of
it.