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It was a relaxed, yet serious discussion during a dinner meeting on Sunday, July 25, in a corner of Moscow, at a restaurant serving traditional Russian dishes. The 39-degree Celsius summer evening, enhanced by several friendly toasts of Nemiroff, a popular Ukrainan vodka, served to enliven the discussion between an Indonesian geologist and his Russian counterpart. Uniquely, the scientific debate was being carried out through translators, because the two speakers could only express themselves in their own languages.

The stars of the discussion were Prof Dr Hardi Prasetyo APU, Deputy Chairman of the Sidoarjo Mud Oversight Agency (BPLS); and Dr Igor Kadurin, Executive Director of Russia's renowned Institute of Electro-Physical Problems.

The topic of their talk was easily discernable to the lay guests: Sidoarjo Mud, or LUSI, the popular name applied to the mud spouting phenomena near Sidoarjo, East Java. However, while BPLS and most scientists refer to the mud eruption as LUSI, others prefer another abbreviation-- LULA (Lumpur Lapindo), to LUSI.

Borscht, the ubiquitous and delicious Russian soup served on the occasion, made the two speakers and the other eight people joining the dinner meeting even more enthusiastic. Once in a while Suara Pembaruan, one of the eight discussion participants, asked questions in a journalist style as opposed to some of the more scientific queries. And fortunately, those and other lay questions asked by participants in the meeting were answered by Igor Kadurin in a clear and straightfarward manner. The Sidoardjo mud cannot be stopped. It is a natural phenomenon. The only thing that can be done is reduce its impacts and determine its next cycles so as to anticipate them, he told the gathered participants.

Igor also expressed his disagreement with the lay assumption that areas around the Lusi eruption center will eventually turn into a massive crater, once all of the underground materials comprising LUSI have been expelled to the surface. Such assumptions will never materialize because any such underground voids are immediately filled with water, said Igor, whose experience includes heading a team of Russian scientists to locate a proper site for Iran's nuclear center, with the purpose of finding a locale that was protected from possible seismic movements.

Lusi Research

Since last year, Igor and his geological team have been conducting special research into the case of LUSI, which the Russian experts call the world’s largest mud volcano. The results have been submitted to Russia's most prestigious and renowned geological institute, AP Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute, popularly known as VSEGEI. Established in St Petersburg on January 31, 1882, the institute is well experienced in handling mud volcano cases since 40 percent of all mud volcanoes are found in Azerbaijian, formerly a part of the Soviet Union. According to geologists, Azerbaijian is the learning ground for all of the world's mud volcano cases.

After conducting painstakingly careful research, all 20 of the highly experienced geologists at VSEGEI who were involved in undertaking agreed that Lusi was a natural phenomenon which cannot be stopped with any known technology. The Lusi disaster was purely triggered by the Yogyakarta earthquake two days before the mud eruption. So far there has not been any technology that can stop the eruption. It was not directly related to nearby oil and gas mining, VSEGEI Deputy Director Dr Yuriy Enricheck told Suara Pembaruan in St Peterburg, Tuesday, July 27.

Yuryi stressed that it was a big mistake to say that the LUSI case is similar to the leakages at British Petroeum's drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The two incidents are totally different. In the Gulf of Mexico, the oil leakages can be stopped because the trigger was clear, while the LUSI mud volcano reactivation has been very much influenced by underground seismic movements. Who can stop that, he asked pointedly.

Yuriy's remarks were in line with the presentation made by Igor and his team from NordWest Company in Moscow the previous day. According to Igor, the seismic data used for their research and the other data were produced in the period from 2003-2006 and analyzed with special computers and satellite technology that aimed to create detailed maps of the underground geological structures at a depth of up to 5,000 meters. The process led to the production of a geographic information system (GIS), which made it possible for Igor and his team to virtuallysee the area where the mud was erupting from using the new 3D imaging techology.

With 3D imaging technology, eventually we can prove or disprove the various theories about LUSI that have been put forward during the past four years, Igor noted.

Igor explained that the 3D imaging not only identified underground reservoirs from where the mud was origination, but also showed the mechanisms through which the mud was transmitted to the surface. Understanding the LUSI movements, according to Igor, will be useful in helping to predict possible future mud eruptions. We are hopeful that our research will provide a basis for other scientists to undertake further studies and help prevent similar disasters in the future, Igor said.

In brief, the studies carried out by the Russians turned out up a number of interesting conclusions including: LUSI was the result of a process of the mud volcano structuring which began forming thousands of years ago and then becoming active again; and the LUSI mud eruption was triggered by a series of earthquakes that started 10 months before prior to the eruption and peaked with the Yogyakarta earthquake two days prior to LUSI erupting. The Russians also concluded that there were to channels by which the mud from LUSI was expelled to the surface, and both were totally separate from the Lapindos well drilling site. As a result, Igor proposed thatLUSIs activities should be continually monitored in order to anticipate possible other mud eruptions in the future, and thus preventing any disruption of the normally peaceful life of people living near the mud eruption area. The LUSI mud volcano will recede automatically and it may even fall asleep for a while. But, the time may come when it will erupt again, and perhaps in an even more disastrous manner. Accordingly, further studies should be carried out to determine the cycles of LUSI. Poligon technology that we have developed since the Cold War era could be used for such studies, Igor said confidently.

Commenting on the presentation made by the Russian scientists, Hardi Prasetyo from Indonesias BPLS, said his organization welcomed the results of the Russian studies and the offer for technological assistance. He was hopeful that the conclusions of the scientists from Russia, which is renowed for its progress in geological sciences, could bridge the two different views about the causes of LUSI. Ideally, their Poligon technology can be used to gain better knowedge about the underground activities of LUSI. I will explain this technology to related institutions in Indonesia. Maybe it could be used to handle the LUSI incident, Hardi said.

According to Hardi, the interest in poligon technology was keen because so far BPLS has never had any technology for monitoring the underground activities of LUSI. My purpose in coming to Russia is to gain knowedge about their geological technology. Their analysis that LUSI is a natural disaster is their scientific right. I am not in the position of influencing people to accept their conclusion since scientists in Indonesia are divided into two camps. Those from the first camp hold that a human factor is behind the LUSI incident while others insist that natural factors are the cause of it. Let time prove which one is correct since voting cannot be held for it, Hardi noted.

Hardi confirmed that the LUSI eruption was receding signicantly. Initially, the mud output could reach 180,000 meters cubic per day, and at the moment it is only around 15,000 cubic meters per day. Moreover, in the past, 30 percent of the material was mud while 70 percent was water, said Hardi, who also related a story about raising an Indonesian national flag on top of the growing mud eruption mountain.

History of Friendship

It was now 10 pm, but Moscow was not yet dark. The conversation continued. Yuriy P Rakintsev, president director of Russias RineftGaz oil and Gas Company, who hosted the dinner meeting, said: We do not have to get trapped into debating about the causes of LUSI. The most urgent thing to be said in this meeting is that Russia is prepared to bring its technology to Indonesia and help minimize the impacts of LUSI, both in the short-term and long-term, he said.

Yuriy reminded the group that Russia and Indonesia have had a long history of friendship and cooperation. President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyonos visit to Russia not long ago and Russian President Vladimir Putins visit to Indonesia in 2007 opened a new era of bilateral cooperation in political, economic and scientific fields. We from RineftGaz are ready to provide a bridge for good relationships between the two countries, said Yuriy, a businessman who said that he has many friends in Indonesia.

Beginning of the Eruption

The LUSI mud began to spewing to the surface on May 29, 2006 near a gas exploration drilling site called Banjarpandji-1 in Renokenongo Village, Porong Subdistrict, Sidoarjo District, and East Java. Initially, the hot mud, which inundated a number of villages, was popularly called LULA a play on the name of the company that was conducting exploratory drilling near the village. Later, when an increasing accumulation of data categorized the mud eruption as a natural disaster, LULA was replaced by a new name, LUSI. Hardi admitted that initially most people assumed that the mud eruption was just an underground blowout at the Banjarpanji-1 exploration well, because the eruption was located around 200 meters from the well site, which was owned by PT Lapindo Brantas. Therefore, initial efforts to stop the mud eruption relied only on known methods commonly used for dealing with underground blowouts.

Those initial efforts included various tactics, such as drilling a re-entry well, a side-tracking well and a relief well. There was also a highly publicized effort to stop the flow by dropping high density chained balls into the eruption crater. All of these methods failed, however.

Even so, the unsuccessful drilling of re-entry, side-tracking and relief wells provided some useful data about the condition of the Banjarpanji-1 well, which turned out to differ from previous estimates. And this provided a new lesson about why these methods failed to stop the eruption. The facts about the well drilling and related geological data were reviewed more carefully, which then turned out two hypotheses about the triggers of the mud volcano, namely underground blowout and the reactivation of the Sesa Watukosek fault. Scientists who supported the underground blowout hypothesis were led by British geologist Richard Davies while supporters of the Sesar Watukosek fault hypothesis were spearheaded by Oslo University scientist Andriano Mazzini, Hardi said.

According to Hardi, one single unifying point that could be objectively identified is that almost all experts agree that LUSI is a mud volcano while still disagreeing on its causes. Davies and his colleagues still hold strongly to the idea that human error was the trigger for the mud volcano. Meanwhile, Mazzini and a number of other scientists hold that the Yogyakarta earthquake was the cause of the incident. At the moment, the Russian scientists support Mazzini’s hypothesis, Hardi said. BPLS, Hardi said, does not want to remain trapped in debates regarding the causes of Lusi. What is important is how to rehabilitate the livelihoods and lives of the people affected by the mud volcano. We are working hard on that, he noted.

His forward looking remarks were fully accepted by Jeffrey R. Richard, Executive Director of Humanitus, an Australia NGO, which since April of this year has taken an active role in helping the people affected by the LUSI disaster. Regardless of the ongoing debates about the causes of Lusi, one thing that we should never forget is the fate of the 40,000 people who have been forced to leave their homes. I see that they have not gotten proper help, he said. Jeffrey, who accompanied Hardi on the visit to Moscow and St Petersburg, is committed to helping mobilize funding for using the Russian technology so as to minimize the impacts of LUSI on the lives of the local people. Beside programs that touch the direct needs of LUSI victims, HSF will raise funds totalling 3-4 million dollars to bring Poligon technology to Sidoarjo, said Jeffrey, who is experienced in assisting disaster and conflict victims in a number of developing countries.

Whil midnight was approaching unnoticed, slowly but surely evening darkness began to cover beautiful Moscow. The warmth of the Nemiroff and the tasty borscht made the leghthy discussion feel far too short. One thing is certain, however. All agreed that breakthroughs should be made to minimize the impacts of the LUSI mud eruption in the short and long terms. This is mainly because LUSI is a natural phenomenon that will never end. It will only fall asleep for a little while and then wake up again sometime in the future. (SP/Chris Mboeik)

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