Santos has mud on its hands

December 2, 2011
Issue 
Sidoarjo mud disaster, East Java.

Australian energy company Santos has met determined resistance to its coal seam gas operations in Australia. It is less well known that Santos was one of the companies responsible for a monumental environmental catastrophe in Indonesia in 2006. The accident drowned villages in the Porong subdistrict of Sidoarjo in mud, and displaced up to 50,000 people.

Santos has an 18% share in the operator responsible for the disaster, PT Lapindo Brantas (Lapindo). Other shareholders include the Bakrie Group and Medco. Santos and Lapindo have denied responsibility. They blame the mud on a nearby earthquake.

But a 2007 report in the Geological Society of America’s journal, GSA Today, argued that the disaster happened because Lapindo failed to install sufficient casing around its gas well.

A Lapindo drill penetrated an underground system of mud and carbonated water. After mud started to seep into the well, Lapindo inserted cement plugs to contain it. The pressurised mud forced its way to the surface and caused a gas explosion at a nearby site.

Huge volumes of mud erupted to the surface on May 26, 2006 — about 150,000 cubic metres a day, creating the world’s largest mud volcano. Two more mud-flows erupted soon after, but ceased by June 2006. However the first mud volcano is still spewing mud at a reduced rate (60,000 cubic metres a day) and is expected to continue for the next 26 years. Mud is still emerging from new points, as are new gas leaks.

Santos was not involved in Lapindo’s day-to-day operations at the site when the incident occurred. However, Lapindo has said it consulted Santos about all drilling procedures, and provided it with regular reports. Santos also apparently had at least one officer on the ground at the time, according to Australian Sidoarjo Assistance Project correspondence with Santos.

The Australian Sidoarjo Assistance Project said 11 villages, extensive farmlands, 30 factories and 33 schools were destroyed by the mud flow. Estimates of people displaced range from 15,000 to 50,000.

The mud contains toxic chemicals such as hydrogen sulphide, hydrocarbons and ammonia, and is saline. The mud flow also destroyed the aquaculture industry in the region.

The victims of the Lapindo disaster have been only partially compensated. Many had to live in refugee camps, subsisting on an inadequate diet, provided largely by NGOs. Rates of depression and malnutrition are high. Victims also suffer from health problems caused by the toxins in the mud and gas.



Santos says it aims to “improve the quality of life of local people through initiatives that boost health, education and incomes” in East Java. This kind of rhetoric should be familiar to Australian audiences that have seen Santos ads on television. In Australia as in Indonesia, Santos says one thing and does another.

On Australian TV the actor-farmer says Santos is “always welcome on my property” because “they look after the people, and they look after the land”. Meanwhile, Australian farmers are blockading their properties to stop Santos damaging the aquifers they depend on.

Significantly, the ongoing Sidoarjo disaster was caused by gas exploration. Mining and energy companies tell concerned residents that environmental concerns are irrelevant at the exploratory stage. Yet if 50,000 people can be displaced by exploration, how bad could things get once extraction starts?

Events in Australia also show the dangers of exploration, like the pumping of 1.2 million litres of diesel to frack the Whicher Range Gas Field in WA in 2004 as part of “exploratory” activities.

Energy companies clearly aren’t exploring because they are curious. At the very least, exploration allows them to get a foot in the door.

The Lapindo victims have stood up for themselves. They protested in their thousands for several years after the catastrophe. Even in May 2010 a protest was attended by several hundred people in several different cities. Organisations fighting for justice include the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Institute Hijau Indonesia, Women’s Solidarity and the People’s Coalition for Justice in Fisheries (Kiara).

International solidarity has largely been missing from this campaign, however. There has been no public solidarity campaign in Australia to hold Santos to account, although the efforts of the Australian National University-based Australian Sidoarjo Assistance project to provide aid to the victims should be commended.

Bizarrely, in May last year Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono suggested the mud flow could become a tourist attraction. Although an environmental disaster would hardly seem an ideal tourist destination, the mud flow nevertheless attracts about 100-300 visitors a day. The visitors are Indonesians and foreigners. It isn’t tourism, but concern. It is a sign that people care.

Now is the time to step up the international solidarity. While Australian farmers are battling Santos over coal seam gas, we can empathise with Santos’ victims in Indonesia.

Comments

There are many anomolies in this article. All I could find about the Australian Sidoarjo Assistance Programme was an old Facebook site with last post on Aug 22, 2008. They have no affiliation with any University in Australia. Why was there no mention of the Australian NGO, Humanitus? They have spoken of many times in the media in SE Asia and Australia these past eighteen months. They ARE helping the people and working with the Government on long term solutions. They held an International Symposium in Surabaya in May this year and scientists from both sides of the drilling debate attended. They were NOT there to talk about the cause but to look to the future and what it holds for the people of the region. The website contains an enormous amount of information on the scientists presentations and recommendations. All of the local and international scientists present are keen to move away from the blame game and focus on future research into this world first geological phenomenon. Whilst they all maintain their theories on the cause interestingly enough, and rarely spoken of by media, the majority believe it to be a natural disaster. The controversy that has been stirred up by the media since this mud volcano erupted has caused an enormous amount of confusion and anger amongst the people of Sidoarjo. It has also stymied any possibility of international assistance which is always the case with disasters of this scale. The media has a lot to answer for I believe. Their website is www.hsf.humanitus.org and you can read their Social Impact Report here along with a lot of very interesting information. I am surprised the author of this article didn't come across Humanitus in his/her research. I guess positive spins on old news stories just don't sell that well.
My apologies for not mentioning Humanitus. Somehow I missed the work of this NGO in my research. The Australian Sidoarjo Assistance Project was a group mainly made up of ANU students dedicated to assisting the Lusi victims. You can read their correspondence with Santos here http://www.slideshare.net/helpsidoarjo/a-s-a-p-santos-correspondence I must respectfully disagree with you about what you call "the blame game". If companies drilling for gas are responsible for displacing tens of thousands of people, they absolutely must be held to account. Otherwise they will think they can get away with such unprofessional practices again. Further, now that Santos is in the spotlight in Australia, it is a good time to reopen the discussion about their operations in Indonesia. I am unclear on some of your comments. Have the media been driving the controversy, or have the Lusi victims successfully brought the issue to the media's attention through their protests? And can you please clarify how media attention prevents international assistance? My understanding was that the lack of assistance was due to the Lusi victims being placed in a grey area - because the gas companies deny responsibility they are not seen as victims of a human-made disaster, but they are not seen as victims of a natural disaster either. I am no geologist, however according to this BBC article a majority of scientists at an international conference in South Africa in 2008 favoured the drilling explanation over the natural disaster explanation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12567163 It is also important to bear in mind that scientific research is not conducted in a bubble apart from politics. The vested interests behind the "natural disaster" explanation are enormous, and I suspect have distorted the scientific debate. Farida Iqbal

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