A new documentary film showing conditions in West Timor years after an oil spill off the northern coast of Western Australia has raised the stakes in the debate over who is ultimately responsible.
The Indonesian government is still pursuing PTT Plc of Thailand and its affiliates in the courts but the company says its own evidence does not support claims that oil leaking from its well caused the damage.
The film makes clear, however, that seaweed farmers in West Timor in East Nusa Tenggara province have been suffering. They are adamant that it was an oil slick that polluted the waters where they made their living.
Local residents call the seaweed "green gold". Good harvests over the years have enabled them to live well and earn the means to send their children to school.
"The seaweed harvest was enough to support my family. The harvest in 2008 was good," said Jacob Sustenes, a farmer interviewed in the film.
But that changed when they began to notice changes in the water in late August 2009. On Aug 21 that year, a wellhead in the Montara oil field blew out, causing millions of litres of oil to spill into the Timor Sea for 74 days. The well was operated by PTTEP Australasia (PTTEP AA), a subsidiary of the Bangkok-based explorer PTT Exploration and Production Plc (PTTEP).
It was "Australia's biggest offshore disaster", narrator Myles Pollard says in A Crude Injustice. The 26-minute film, which began as a research project by director Jane Hammond for a master's degree in professional communication at Edith Cowan University, was shown to the public for the first time in Jakarta on June 20.
Gab Oma, a fisherman interviewed in the film, said he was out fishing in late August 2009 when he noticed a yellowish substance floating in the sea. He and his colleagues thought it was whale vomit at the time.
Seaweed farmer Jolis Nggadas said he began to notice there was something wrong with his seaweed. "It was damaged and mushy," Nggadas said.
Local residents interviewed in the film indicated that their economy since then had been declining. Families were forced to cut back and some had to stop sending their children to school. To make matters worse, some began to suffer skin diseases after contact with seawater.
Ferdi Tanoni, the chairman of the West Timor Care Foundation (YPTB), said that strong winds dispersed the slick into the Timor Sea. After the incident, he said, income for fishermen and seaweed farmers in at least 13 coastal regencies and towns along the Savu Sea and Timor Sea plummeted by 60-90%.
The film says nothing was paid or set side for the people in West Timor out of the fine of A$510,000 that a court in Darwin ordered PTTEP AA to pay in 2011 after it pleaded guilty to negligence in operating procedures.
Stills from the official trailer for A Crude Injustice, directed by Jane Hammond, documenting the impact of the Montara oil spill. Photo: Jane Hammond via YouTube
Hammond said it took her three years to research, produce and edit the film. "It was regarded as research [for master's degree] so it went through an ethics committee to ensure that it is academically legitimate," she told Asia Focus at the screening.
"This is a story that really needs to be told," the former journalist for The West Australian newspaper in Perth recalled thinking after she saw the oil spill impact for herself during visits in 2015 and 2016 to interview fishermen and farmers.
Although as a journalist she had been covering the issue since the disaster unfolded, Hammond said she was amazed that the impact lingered on seven years after the oil leaked.
She met with people who developed unexplained skin irritations after contact with seawater, heard their stories of financial hardship and ruined seaweed crops.
"I do believe that Australian people don't like to see this kind of injustice," she added.
"The polluting company denies that the oil ever reached the shores of West Timor and says it's not to blame," the film's narrator says.
PTTEP declined to comment on camera for the film and told the producers only that it was "highly improbable" that the oil had reached West Timor waters.
Stills from the official trailer for A Crude Injustice, directed by Jane Hammond, documenting the impact of the Montara oil spill. Photo: Jane Hammond via YouTube
Mukhtasor, a maritime energy professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember in Surabaya, said satellite images show that the oil slick entered Indonesian waters.
"Based also on accountable scientific calculation and 'fingerprinting' analysis of the oil sample, which show it is 95% identical to the oil from Montara, we can say that the oil did reach Indonesian waters," he said during a discussion after the film screening.
But what matters now, he added, is not the evidence but whether it will be accepted by all parties involved in the case.
Indonesia said it had been trying for years to get all parties talking about to resolve the pollution problem caused by the oil spill, but to no avail.
The government on May 3 filed a suit against PTTEP AA, PTTEP and PTT Plc in Thailand for around 27 trillion rupiah (US$2 billion) compensation for the environmental damage in the Timor Sea caused by the 2009 oil spill and for its restoration efforts. The first hearing in Central Jakarta district court has been scheduled for Aug 23.
"After so many sincere attempts on our part to come and talk to them [PTTEP], we have not seen a positive reply from them. We feel they are not serious about handling this issue. They seem not to place importance on this case, therefore it can be read they don't place importance on us as a country," said Arif Havas Oegroseno, a deputy in charge of maritime sovereignty at the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs.
Stills from the official trailer for A Crude Injustice, directed by Jane Hammond, documenting the impact of the Montara oil spill. Photo: Jane Hammond via YouTube
An independent commission, with former foreign ministers of Indonesia and Thailand as members, was set up in an attempt to promote negotiations, but Oegroseno said PTTEP representatives failed to show up at a final meeting in late 2012, stalling the process further.
"We concluded that they didn't show goodwill," he said. "Moreover, there were external factors such as the changes of governments in Indonesia and Thailand. So it's better late [to file the lawsuit] than never."
He said the government had strong evidence to show the court, including oil samples and satellite imaging, showing that the oil spill entered Indonesian waters and subsequently damaged the environment, including 1,200 hectares of mangrove forest, 1,400 hectares of seaweed meadows and 700 hectares of coral reefs and sea grass.
PTTEP AA, however, maintains that extensive independent scientific research overseen by the Australian government showed that no oil from Montara reached the shores of Indonesia or Australia. Thus, no long-term damage was done to the environment in the Timor Sea.
These independent studies, it said, showed there were no lasting impacts on any marine species or ecosystems in Australian waters, including at reefs closest to Indonesian waters, a spokesman for PTTEP AA said in a reply to an email sent by Asia Focus.
"PTTEP Australasia acknowledged at the time of the incident that some weathered remnant oil, in the form of wax flakes or sheen, crossed into Indonesian waters," the spokesman said. "Satellite imagery, aerial survey images and trajectory modelling concluded that the majority of the oil remained in Australian waters and that no oil reached the Australian or Indonesian coastlines."
Oegroseno, however, said the survey was invalid since it was not conducted in Indonesia.
In a separate legal proceeding, about 15,000 West Timor seaweed farmers from Kupan and Rote Ndao regencies filed a A$200-million class action against PTTEP AA in Australian federal court in Sydney in August last year.
The actual number of seaweed farmers in 13 towns and regencies affected by the spill ranges between 35,000 and 50,000.
"The class action sought is only 10% out of the total damage that the Montara oil spill caused," said Tanoni of West Timor Care.
PTTEP AA has denied that the decline in seaweed and fish production in West Timor is related to the Montara incident. It said alternative evidence suggests the decline has been caused by environmental factors unrelated to Montara oil.
"PTTEP AA remains willing to engage with the government of Indonesia to address these claims. We have always acted cooperatively and in good faith in our past discussions with the government of Indonesia and we will continue to do so," the spokesman said.