SYDNEY - PTT Exploration & Production Plc, Thailand’s biggest publicly listed oil and natural gas explorer, is facing A$200 million (US$152 million) class action lawsuit from 13,000 Indonesian seaweed farmers who claim a 2009 oil spill devastated their livelihoods.
The suit is being filed on Wednesday in the Federal Court in Sydney against PTT Exploration’s Australian arm, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said in an e-mailed statement.
It state that after an explosion in August 2009, the company’s Montara rig off Australia’s northwest coast spewed 300,000 litres (79,000 gallons) of oil a day into the Timor Sea for 70 days before being capped.
“The operator of the oil rig has a serious case to answer for cutting corners that endangered lives, the environment and the livelihoods of thousands of seaweed farmers” in Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara Timur province (West Timor), Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said in the statement.
PTTEP Australasia intends to issue a statement later today, spokesman Gavin Ryan said on Wednesday.
The unit in August 2012 pleaded guilty to four charges laid by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority and accepted fines totaling A$510,000 by the Darwin Magistrates Court for its responsibility in the incident.