The Montara Oil Spill has been described as one of the worst oil spills in Australia and rates as Australia’s third largest oil spill in history (RET). The incident occurred at the Montara wellhead platform, which is 250 kilometres north of Truscott, and 690 kilometres west of Darwin located in the Timor Sea on August 21, 2009 (ABC).
The platform itself is operated by PTTEP Australasia (Ashmore Cartier) Pty Ltd. The ‘oil spill’ itself is an oil and gas leak caused by a blow-out on the Montara platform’s wellhead, the result was a large oil slick which placed surrounding environment and marine ecosystems in danger. The situation had a turn of events on November 1st when the leaking well was finally intercepted; however a fire broke out on both the West Atlas rig and the Montara Wellhead Platform. On the 3rd of November, the fire was extinguished, and the leak was finally contained (RET) resulting in a total of 74 days since the blow-out.
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