PTT Exploration and Production, which is searching for oil in the Andaman Sea off Phuket, was criticised this week in an Australian Government report into an oil rig fire and a 74-day spill off the coast of Australia.

An oil rig operated by PTTEP Australasia caught fire in the Timor Sea in August 2009 and spewed oil and condensate from the Montara wellhead for 74 days before it was stopped.

Extensively reported in the Australian media, the Montara inquiry criticised the Thai firm for "widespread and systematic shortcomings" that caused the worst offshore drilling spill in Australia's history and resulted in putting the marine environment at risk around the rig.

Days before the Australian report was released, PTTEP's Vice President, External Relations, Sidhichai Jayant, visited Phuket to provide some details of the exploration now taking place off Phuket.

He said that signs of oil had been found in two of the three exploration plots off Phuket, and the search was continuing in the third. The three plots lie 70-80 kilometres from Phuket at the closest point and extend up to 300 kilometres out to sea.

The entire 68,820 square kilometres of the vast search area stretches along the Andaman coast from Satun to Ranong, offshore from all six Andaman coast provinces.

Exploratory work began in 2007 and PTTEP has a lease until 2012. By then, it should be evident whether the Andaman oil reserves are sizeable enough to warrant the huge investment in offshore oil rigs.

Khun Sidhichai told a media conference on Phuket early this week that the value of reserves off the Andaman coast would need to be gauged when exploration had concluded, but that having its own considerable oil supply would be important to Thailand's economy.

When asked on Monday about the dangers of an environmental issue, he said that problems only occurred at one in every 2000 units and were usually the result of ''very, very bad luck.''

On Wednesday, the Montara report blamed PTTEP Australasia for failing to follow safe practices, including having effective fail-safe mechanisms that would have prevented a blowout and fire on the platform.

In reaction to the report, PTTEP said that independent modelling showed no oil from the spill reached the Australian mainland or the Indonesian coast.

However, environmentalists said the effect on whales and dolphins in the region was not known.

PTTEP accepted it was deficient in its operations and proposed a nine-point action plan that it claimed would ensure such an incident never happened anywhere in the world again.

Any decision by the Thai Government to tap oil off Phuket and the relatively pristine Andaman tourism coast would clearly have to be weighed against the potential danger to the nation's most precious and valuable marine region.