The fishermen are from Timor, Rota, Sabu, Sumba, Alor, Lembata and East Flores.

"The Australian government and the Montara oil and gas field operator has shunned its responsibility," GMIT synod head Reverend Robert Litelnoni told The Jakarta Post.

Litelnoni claimed the oil pollution in the Timor Sea has caused negative impacts on the marine ecosystem as well as human survival.

The church says it sent a letter to the Uniting Church in Australia to urge the Australian government to resolve the issue. Also copied in were Indonesian president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the Indonesian Churches Union and the West Timor Care Foundation.

There are claims that the impacts from the oil spill caused more than 10,000 fishermen and seaweed farmers living along the coast to lose their source of livelihood.

For its part, PTTEP says modelling shows no oil reached the Australian or Indonesian mainland and that 98% of oil remained within Australian waters, most of which was within 23km of the wellhead.

Indonesia's government has claimed that devastating impact of the Montara incident has been strongly felt by the people living in the coastal areas and that oil did cross over into the Indonesian economic exclusive zone.

Some coastal communities claim about 20% of the spill went into Indonesian waters, and that they have suffered ever since.

PTTEP has refused to pay compensation to the coastal communities.

In August 2009 the wellhead blew at the Montara platform in Australian waters and crude oil spewed out into the Timor Sea for 74 days.

Some estimates put the rate of leakage at 500,000 litres per day as the company worked to cap the well and sprayed chemicals on the ocean to disperse the oil.

It remains one of Australia's worst-ever oil spills.