Assam: BOP douses Baghjan gas fire

11:30 August 10

Assam: BOP douses Baghjan gas fire

Guwahati:The Oil India Limited’s effort to douse the oil well, which had been spewing gas and fire since last 75 days, at Baghjan in eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district has yielded successful results. Blow Out Preventor (BOP) successfully capped on the Baghjan gas well fire on Monday and the next step will be to 'kill' the well. The Baghjan Oil blowout incident crossed 75th day on Sunday but still, the fire has been continuously coming out from the affected site.

PSU major OIL on Saturday had said preparations have been made for capping the blowout in its well at Baghjan in Assam which is spewing gas uncontrollably for 75 days.

The wellhead and its plinth have been made ready for the fire control operation, a release by Oil India Limited said. The rig upload testing of the complete wagon is planned for Saturday and treatment of well-killing fluid is underway, it had said.

Well number five at Baghjan has been spewing gas uncontrollably for the last 66 days since May 27 and it caught fire on June 9, killing two of OIL's firefighters at the site, besides injuring three foreign experts.

"Capping blow out preventer (BOP) stack with kill lines have been tested successfully. Assembling of Athey Wagon has been completed (an equipment for fighting oil field fires) with the newly fabricated axle, modified Boom sections and with other accessories", the PSU had said.

The water deluge system has been readied for supporting all operations and safety systems are also in place, the release had said.

OIL said "Oil and gas production continues to be affected due to forceful closure of few wells connected to Baghjan EPS. Drilling and workover operation also continue to be affected at few of the locations due to forceful closure of operation."

READ: Assam: Attempt to cap OIL well at Baghjan fails, reasons being examined

As a result of protests, blockades and bandhs by locals since May 27 due to the blowout, the company's cumulative loss of crude oil and natural gas has been 24068 MT and 57.16 MMSCM, respectively, the release had said.

OIL said it has surveyed 2739 families till August 7 in Doomdooma and Tinsukia circles for providing relief and rehabilitation.

Environmental Impact Assessment study on various parameters are being carried out by various agencies such as TERI, CSIR-NEIST and IIT-Guwahati apart from OILs in-house monitoring of air quality, noise level and gas presence, the release had said.

Bioremediation activities at affected areas are also in progress, the release had added.

With agency inputs