Pertamina Involves Foreign Workers in Handling Oil Spill

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Pertamina’s incident commander for YYA I Project, Taufik Adiyawarman, said the state-run oil and gas company recruited foreign workers to help handle the oil spill incident in the firm's Offshore North West Java (ONWJ) in Karawang.

“As we have said that we do our utmost to expedite the spill recovery. So we call in human resources from outside [of the country],” said Taufik at the PGE Tower office, Jakarta, Monday, August 26.

He said that the corporate had communicated the matter with related authorities, such as the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKK Migas) and the Directorate General of Sea Transportation.

According to him, his side has sought capable domestic workers but to no avail.

In addition, Pertamina will shut off the well in a bid to stop the spill in October 2019. “We have targeted to kill the well on October 8. Hopefully, we can intersect it on 6. It can be on October 8 or 1,” said Taufik.

He admitted that the incident had not been resolved yet to date. The closing will begin after the drilling reaches 9,030 feet.

He said this morning, August 26, the drilling reached 6,939 feet. “We are getting there. We have several optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic plans,” he said, adding that the well would be closed before October if the handling of oil spill went without a hitch. 

MUHAMMAD HENDARTYO