Java mud volcano blamed on drilling
DRILLING a gas well owned by an Indonesian minister and Australian mining giant Santos caused a mud volcano that flooded 600 hectares of East Java and left more than 30,000 people homeless, an international study has found.
The findings will increase pressure to fully compensate the victims. Thousands live in makeshift camps as the mudflow continues at a million barrels a day.
Although the well’s primary shareholder, Lapindo, owned by Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, and Santos have agreed to pay limited compensation, Lapindo says this was a natural disaster caused by an earthquake 250 kilometres away more than two years ago. Earth scientists from Indonesia, Berkeley University, Durham University and Adelaide University reject that theory.
“We are more certain than ever that the mud volcano is an unnatural disaster and was triggered by drilling the Banjar-Panji-1 well,” said the study’s lead author, Durham University professor Richard Davies.
Berkeley professor Michael Manga said: “We have known for hundreds of years that earthquakes can trigger eruptions. In this case, the earthquake was too small and too far away.”
Analysis of Lapindo’s data revealed a huge leakage of fluid and mud into the drill well, which was not fitted with the required safety casing. The leaking pressurised fluid fractured surrounding rock, allowing the mud to spurt out of cracks rather than from the wellhead.
“There is not a hope on earth they are going to stop it now,” Dr Manga said. “You can plug up a hole, but if you try to plug a crack, stuff just flows around the plug or the crack gets bigger.”
A Santos spokesman declined to comment on the report, but said the company had paid nearly $30 million in compensation and made provision for another $67 million.
Lapindo has agreed to pay more than $400 million to victims.
MARK FORBES
Source: http://www.theage.com.au/
Add comment June 11th, 2008