Drilling firm Lapindo Brantas has blamed an earthquake that occurred 280 kilometres away for the 2006 eruption, which killed 13 people and displaced another 30,000, and has published a paper in Marine and Petroleum Geology that backs up its claim. However, in a discussion paper accepted for publication in the same journal, a group of scientists led by Richard Davies of the Durham Energy Institute has refuted Lapindo Brantas’s main arguments and provided evidence to link the drilling and the eruption.

The scientists suggest that the disaster was caused by the removal of the drill from the hole while the hole was still unstable, triggering a ‘kick’ in the well – an uncontrollable influx of water and gas from the surrounding rock. They point to an on-site drilling report that states that the drilling company pumped heavy mud into the well to try to stop the mud volcano, an action that was partially successful.

‘The observation that pumping mud into the hole caused a reduction in eruption rate indicated a direct link between the wellbore and the eruption,’ Davies said.

The mud from the volcano now covers an area of seven square kilometres to a depth of around 20 metres, with enough mud to fill 50 Olympic swimming pools oozing out every day. All efforts to stem the flow of mud have failed and scientists suggest the volcano could continue to erupt for decades.

April 2010