In The Blogs

Oil Still Spewing Off Australia

| Fri Oct. 30, 2009 3:19 PM PDT

— NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team

It's been two months to the day since I posted here about a major oil leak spewing from a wellhead in the Timor Sea northwest of Australia. At the time officialdom was predicting it might takes weeks to cap.

Well, it's been 9 weeks and crude oil and gas condensate are still leaking. Thai energy company PTTEP has so far tried and failed to cap the mess three times. Their estimate for success remains firm at "weeks."

A wide range of marine wildlife—dolphins, sea birds, sea turtles, whales, dugongs—is under threat from the 2,500-square-mile slick. The spill is also crossing an oceanic superhighway for migrating marine life.

The images are from NASA’s Aqua satellite and posted at their Earth Observatory (mission: to share images, stories, and discoveries about climate and environment emerging from NASA research). The top picture shows the area around the damaged oil platform in relation to the northwest tip of Australia. The lower image shows a close-up of the slick (dark blue) and the leak (small circle).

Oil slicks on the ocean are often imperceptible in natural color images. But when they appear in the sunglint—that is, where the mirrorlike reflection of the Sun washes out the image—they sometimes become visible. As seen here.

UPI reports the leak is difficult to contain or assess because it's about 2 miles below the surface. PTTEP claims it's leaking 400 barrels a day. Australia's Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism calculates it's more like 2,000 barrels of oil a day.

Let's see, 2,000 x 9 weeks = 126,000 barrels. That's about half what the Exxon Valdez dumped. Not to mention which we're still seeing the devastating effects of that spill 20 years later.

More interesting, in a way, is how little attention this slow-motion disaster is garnering. If only there was a ship cracked up on the rocks. As it is, without pictures, there's no story. NASA is trying. But the little circle and the dark blue in the sunglint just can't cut through the fog of Dancing With the Stars.

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Julia Whitty is the Environmental Correspondent for Mother Jones. Her latest book DEEP BLUE HOME: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean will be out in July. For more of her stories, click here.

Comments

Australia (Timor Sea) oil spill images

Submitted by SkyTruth (not verified) on Mon Nov. 2, 2009 6:40 AM PST.

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Julia - thanks for being one of the few in the US media who are paying attention to this spill. So far there is no reason to believe a catastrophic blowout like this couldn't happen in US waters. If it happened a few miles off Florida, or Virginia, or in Alaska's Bristol Bay, it would have disastrous impacts on fishing and tourism - major economic drivers in those areas.

See more satellite images of the Australia spill, and illustrations showing what a comparable spill would look like in US waters, in SkyTruth's image gallery for this incident. Keep up with the latest information on the continuing Timor Sea blowout and spill at the SkyTruth blog.

Thanks for the links.

Submitted by Julia Whitty on Mon Nov. 2, 2009 11:39 AM PST.

Thanks for the links. Excellent photographs and blog posts. Even more relevant now with the sad news over the weekend of the huge fire on the rig. But as you say in your blog, perhaps the fire will at least burn off the oil and gas before it can contaminate the ocean further. Julia Whitty, Environmental Correspondent, Mother Jones

Efforts to plug an oil leak

Submitted by Neil kevin on Thu Nov. 5, 2009 1:35 AM PST.

Efforts to plug an oil leak in the Timor Sea are hampered as a fire breaks out on the West Atlas rig and the Montara well head platform, PTTEP Australasia reports.
All personnel on the West Triton and on nearby work vessels are reported to be safe, with some workers being evacuated from the rig, media spokesperson for PTTEP Carla Shearman said.

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