$2.4b Bill for Oil Spill Nowhere Near Enough, Activists Claim

Eras Poke | August 27, 2010
Kupang. Indonesia’s official compensation claim of Rp 22 trillion ($2.44 billion) for last year’s oil spill in the Timor Sea is grossly inadequate, activists say. 
“We strongly reject the amount because it is not based on scientific research,” said Ferdy Tanoni, head of the West Timor Care Foundation, which has been lobbying on behalf of fishermen affected by the spill. 
“If the environmental damage turns out to be more than Rp 22 trillion, who’s going pay the deficit? The local government does not have the money to cover it.” 
Indonesia’s negotiating team on Wednesday presented the claim to Thailand’s state-controlled PTT Exploration and Production. Its subsidiary, PTTEP Australasia, was operating the Montara oil rig when it caught fire off Australia’s northern coast in August last year and leaked about 400 barrels of oil a day for 74 days. 
Indonesia claims the spill has affected large areas off East Nusa Tenggara, with fishermen reporting significantly lower catches. However, PTTEP chief executive Anon Sirisaengtaksin said the energy firm and the Indonesian government had major differences over what the economic impact would be for fisheries and coastal communities. The company has said “no verifiable evidence has yet to be presented to support any claim.” 


Transport Minister Freddy Numberi, who is also head of the team handling the oil spill, said compensation was now being negotiated. “The important thing is that we have already made our claims and there will now be other meetings which I hope will not last a long time,” he said. 
But Ferdy said the government should have taken longer to determine how much compensation it was going to claim because about 1.5 million people in East Nusa Tenggara were depending on it. 
“To clean up a 3,400-square-kilometer area of the ocean in Alaska contaminated by the Exxon Valdes tanker explosion in 1989 they spent $3.6 billion,” he said. “But for Timor sea incident, which spread across 78,000 square kilometers, the figure is only Rp 22 trillion? 
“The Alaska incident happened 21 years ago but the impact is still being felt.” 


Ferdy said that if in five years it was found that the 1.5 million people in the province were still eating contaminated fish, the government would not be able to press for more money. “We have formed the Timor Sea pollution monitoring agency which will deliver its own claims,” he said. 
“This agency consists of ocean experts from universities in the province, Australia and France. We will be sending the claim to them on September 10.” 
But the deputy governor of East Nusa Tenggara, Esthon Foenay, said the local government has already given the province’s official compensation claim to Jakarta. “The ones doing all the negotiating are the advocacy team,” Esthon said. “We only prepared evidence about the contamination in Kupang district, Kupang city, Rote Ndao, Sabu, Belu, Sumba, East Timor, and Lembata districts.” 


Alex Oematan, the head of the East Nusa Tenggara Environmental Agency, said the compensation the province received would be distributed to affected fishermen and sea weeds farmers and spent on cleaning the water. 
“It will also go to recovery of coral reefs, which could cost Rp 3.5 million to Rp 4 million per square meter of coral reef.”