AKARTA, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian government is preparing a draft to ask compensation from Australian government and an Australian oil firm over oil spill that wrecked the ecosystem in Indonesia's waters, the Antara news agency reported here on Wednesday.
"The results of laboratory tests conducted by our observation team showed that Indonesian Timor waters is contaminated by the oil spill came up from the explosion in Montana oil field," Pieter Fina, head of Indonesian team tasked to mitigate the oil spill in Timor sea said, referring to explosion in oil ridge off Timor coast ran by the Australian oil firm that occurred in August last year.
"We are drafting a compensation proposal regarding that mishap, " Pieter said on the sidelines of coordinating meeting with related officials here recently.
He said that the compensation demand would be based on Indonesian law No. 32/2009 that protects and regulates the management of natural life in Indonesia.
Besides that, the compensation demand that would be addressed to Australian government and PTTEP Australasia that runs the Montana oil ridge, also refers to the presidential decree No. 109/ 2006 that regulates the cost allocation and mitigation efforts on oil spill on the sea.
Due to the oil spill from Montana oil ridge, Pieter said that fishermen suffer from significant reduction in fish they caught since the sea they used to catch fishes was badly contaminated by oil spill.
Besides that, the contamination came up from the oil spill has destroyed seaweed business of people living in the southern Timor coastal areas, Rote and Sabu islands in Indonesia's province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) that borders to Timor Leste, he said.
