Two more months required to kill damaged Baghjan gas well in Assam Oil India chief

    (Eds: With more inputs)
    Guwahati, Sep 29 (PTI) PSU major Oil India Ltd (OIL)
on Tuesday said it will likely take overseas experts two more
months to kill its damaged well at Baghjan in Assam, where gas
has been gushing out uncontrollably for the last 126 days.
    Addressing a press conference after the company's
annual general meeting, OIL Chairman and MD Sushil Chandra
Mishra said it has started taking action against employees
responsible for the mishap, which has killed three persons.
    "The fire at the well-head has been doused after we
successfully diverted the gas on September 13. We are in the
process of completely controlling the well and for that, a
snubbing unit from Canada is likely to arrive within next
three-four weeks," he said.
    After the arrival of experts of the Alert Disaster
Control with their equipment, it will take another 3-4 weeks
to control and kill the well, Mishra said, adding, "a total of
about eight weeks will be required to kill the well from now".
    The company has spent around Rs 70 crore so far
towards foreign experts in their efforts to douse the flame
and control the well, the top OIL official said.
    On August 17, OIL had achieved the first successful
step towards dousing the blaze when it could place the Blow
Out Preventer, a very heavy metal cover weighing several
tonnes, in its third attempt at the mouth of the damaged gas
well.
    Assam Commerce and Industry Minister Chandra Mohan
Patowary had said in the assembly on September 2 that a team
of experts from Canada were on their way to Baghjan and it
will take them two more months to douse the flame.
    Asked about the findings of the internal probe on the
worst industrial disaster of Assam, the CMD said a preliminary
report has been submitted and the company has initiated action
against "some people".
    He, however, declined to share details and appealed to
everyone to wait for another four-five weeks for the
investigations by a number of statutory bodies of the state
and central governments.
    The company is at present reviewing and modifying its
entire list of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on account
of modernisation, and changing conditions to boost the safety
measures, he said.
    Talking about the loss incurred due to the Baghjan
tragedy, Mishra said, "The total gas loss has been 80,000
standard cubic meters. The loss due to the specific well is Rs
6 crore, while forced closures and blockades by locals have
cost us Rs 179 crore."
    OIL also lost production of 84,000 metric tonnes of
crude oil due to protests after the blowout took place on
May 27.
    He said 22 wells were shut down by agitators in the
Baghjan area at one point of time, but all are operational
now except the damaged one.
    Mishra said the company will drill another well near
the damaged one for producing gas, and look for more
production in the area in future to compensate for the loss.
    "We have also initiated some austerity measures in the
company. We are trying to reduce our expenses in the next one
year to make up for the loss," he said.
    On OIL's internal Crisis Management Team to handle
such blowout situations, Mishra accepted that the company once
had a CMT, but it was not very active.
    "We have reactivated the CMT and this will be a
priority area and a challenge. However, this blowout was so
big that even the combined effort of ONGC and OIL teams has
not been able to control it," he said.
    Regarding compensation to the people near the Baghjan
well, Mishra said the company has deposited the money
estimated by the Tinsukia district administration and the
National Green Tribunal after surveying 2,756 families.
    He also said that various assessments and impact
studies of the blowout as well as the blaze in villages and
nearby forest areas by multiple agencies such as ERM India,
TERI, CSIR-NEIST and IIT-Guwahati are underway.
    "These reports have pointed out that there is no major
damage to the ecology. But there has been damage at the well
site and it needs to be restored after a survey. We hope to
start these works by end of November when the well is
expected to be killed forever," the OIL chief said.
    Asked about drilling inside the Dibru-Saikhowa
National Park and any possible damage, he said there will be
no impact as the company will drill from about a two-km
distance outside the boundary of the forest with the help of
advanced technologies.
    The well number 5 at Baghjan in Tinsukia district of
Assam has been spewing gas uncontrollably since May 27, and it
caught fire on June 9, killing two of OIL's firefighters at
the site.
    On September 9, a 25-year-old electrical engineer of
the company lost his life due to high-voltage electric shock
when he was working at the well site.
    Three experts from Singaporean firm Alert Disaster
Control, who were invited to assist OIL and ONGC officials for
putting out the inferno, had received burn injuries while they
were removing a spool from the well-head on July 22. PTI TR
RBT RBT

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)