Ongc To Hire Us Firm To Cap Blowout Our Bureaux

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has decided to seek the services of International Well Control (IWC) of the US to put out a fire at its Mandapeta West on-shore well in Andhra Pradesh. IWC was also involved in capping the blow-out in the Pasarlapudi well in early 1995, with its vice-president, Raymond Henry, personally supervising operations.

An official spokesman of the corporation said IWC had already started mobilising its resources and its first team should be at the site within a day or so.

Although the blow-out has not caused any casualties, it destroyed a Hitech Drilling rig worth Rs 12 crore and caused damage worth about Rs 7 crore to other equipment at the well site.

 

The spokesman said the redeeming feature of the blow-out was that the fire was confined to the well-head and was not spreading. He added that the corporation had managed to locate a water source nearby and water-spraying had started on the flames. Reports from the site indicated that both the noise level and the height of the flame have come down since early this morning.

A high level team of ONGC, headed by its director (drilling) S M Malhotra and director (personnel), Jauhari Lal, rushed to the blow-out site. Malhotra and Lal met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and assured him that all possible steps would be taken to control the inferno rapidly. The anxiety of the corporations top brass is understandable since the Pasarlapudi well fire had lasted almost 62 days.

According to information now available from the ONGC control room at Rajahmundry, 40 km from the gas well, the blow-out occurred on Wednesday when drilling of the well was in full swing at a depth of 2,754 metres. The well was planned to reach a depth of 4,400 metres.

The drilling staff sensed trouble as sounds of gas gushing out were heard. The blow-out preventer was immediately applied and the staff left the rig site.

ONGC chairman P C Bora said it could take 15-20 days to put out the fire. But M Rangarajan, ONGC group general manager in the Krishna-Godavari basin, opined that it would take at least 60 days to extinguish the blow-out from the rogue well.

According to sources, the latter assessment is probably more realistic since establishing a water umbrella around the flame by setting up heavy duty pumps is expected to take around a month. The umbrella will be required to enable the crisis management team members to go near the burning well and remove the tonnes of debris before working out the strategy to control the flames, which are about 40 feet high.

The fire-fighters are hoping that the casing in the burning well will collapse on its own, thus blocking off the gas and oil flow and automatically killing the fire. Otherwise, they are likely to face a lengthy struggle. However, there has already been one fortunate development for the fire-fighters. With oil also gushing out from the blow-out, the task of capping the fire has been made a little easier.