ONGC contains gas leak at Assam's Rudrasagar well site on 15th day

ONGC, with support from US experts, successfully capped a gas leak at the Rudrasagar field in Assam's Sivasagar district, prompting evacuation of over 1,500 people

State-owned national oil and gas major ONGC on Friday managed to stop the natural gas at the Rudrasagar gas field in Assam which had been leaking for the past 15 days.

 

ONGC announced that capping operation has successfully completed at the RDS 147A well site in Sivasagar district. “This blowout started on June 12, and has been capped successfully within shortest possible time following all the best practices," Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in a post on X. 

 

ONGC’s Crisis Management Team (CMT), along with experts from the Texas-based Cudd Pressure Control company, completed the operation to safely remove the damaged Blowout Preventer (BOP) from the wellhead. "The effort was carried out with high precision and coordination to ensure stability and prevent any imbalance or toppling during the lifting process," ONGC said in a statement.

 

Once the BOP was safely removed, the pre-positioned capping stack, prepared at the staging area, was carefully and accurately placed onto the wellhead. This redirected the gas flow securely to the top of the capping stack, allowing containment.

 

Before this, an extra-long boom crane and a 40-tonne crane had been used successfully to remove the 42 tubing stands from the derrick of the rig, clearing the path for the safe removal of the rig base from the wellhead.

 

The gas leak had sparked widespread fear, and 330 families were evacuated from surrounding areas as a precautionary measure. 

 

The first team of mining engineers and experts from the United States had reached the gas field on June 20, or the 8th day after the leak had begun. The team included experts from the International Well Control Agency.

 

Rudrasagar is one of India's oldest production sites operational since 1960, and is located on the outskirts of district headquarters Sivasagar. More than 1,500 people from villages around the rig have been evacuated. In June, 2020, a similar gas well blowout in Oil India Limited's (OIL) Baghjan gas field, in Assam's Tinsukia district, resulted in three deaths and large scale evacuation.