An abandoned oil drilling rig off the coast of Western Australia’s Midwest is at the centre of a storm about who pays the clean-up bill after the company that owned it went into administration.
Local fishermen and conservation groups are demanding the federal government take action over the Cliff Head oil platform before crayfishing grounds are put at risk.
Pilot Energy was working with Triangle Energy to repurpose the rig, which sits 11 kilometres off the coast of Dongara, about 350 kilometres north of Perth.
But in July both companies, which had a combined value of about $9 million, went bust, leaving a decommissioning bill of $200 million.
Cray fisher Mike Butcher worries what will now happen to the unused Cliff Head platform sitting…