Unspun

Nature did it. That’s what Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said when speaking to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club today on the Lapindo disaster. Readmore about what went on below from this Dow Jones article. The bold type is Unspun‘s:

JAKARTA (Dow Jones)–Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said Wednesday that the massive mud flow that swamped a huge area of East Java was a “natural disaster” unrelated to the activities of gas-drilling companies operating in the area, including PT Lapindo Brantas.

Bakrie’s family runs the diversified Bakrie Group conglomerate which owns Lapindo, owner of a 50% stake in the gas well blamed for starting the mud flow.

The mud flow didn’t happen “because of a Lapindo drill, but because of earthquakes,” Bakrie told a luncheon briefing of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club.

“Nothing could have stopped it,” he said, adding it was “still possible” that official probes of the disaster might find evidence of corporate negligence, without elaborating.

Bakrie said he based his assessment on “independent” researchers’ investigations of the disaster, but didn’t elaborate.

Lapindo owns 50% of the gas well blamed for starting the mud flow. Australia’s Santos Ltd. (STO.AU) holds 18% and PT Medco E&P Brantas, a unit of gas and oil producer PT Medco Energi (MEDC.JK), owns the remainder.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last month ordered Lapindo to pay IDR3.8 trillion to both “overcome” the mud flow and to compensate those affected by the disaster.
Both Indonesia’s Minister of the Environment Rachmat Witoelar and Vice President Jusuf Kalla have suggested that stakeholders in the gas well drilling operation implicated in sparking the mud flow could face legal action.

The Banjar Panji gas well in Sidoarjo – near the East Java industrial hub of Surabaya – began spewing boiling mud on May 29, 2006.

The mud, now flowing at a rate of 125,000 cubic meters a day, has buried nearby villages and inundated vital road, rail and gas pipeline links, displacing thousands of local residents and disrupting commodities transport in the area.

Santos has set aside A$43.7 million in provisions to pay for cleanup and other costs related to the mud flow disaster.

Bakrie declined to comment on Santos’ degree of responsibility for the disaster and related compensation.