Oil India Limited efforts on to kill the blowout well at Baghjan

A CORRESPONDENT

DOOMDOOMA: Despite Oil India Limited's three unsuccessful attempts to douse the raging fire at Baghjan in Doomdooma LAC in Tinsukia district that broke out on June 9, it has not yet given up its attempt to repair the six inch diameter casing valve that gave way on Wednesday while injecting 'killing fluid' (mud) through the inlet of Blow Out Preventor (BOP) at a pressure higher than that of the gas outflow pressure of 4500 psi (pounds per square inch).

The press release issued by OIL stated, "After Wednesday's inspection and assessment of the well head and subsequent discussions amongst Alert, ONGC CMT and OIL's technical team, the possibility of repairing the damaged casing head housing is being looked into and arrangements for the same is underway."

A press release issued on Friday went on to add, "'Heat shields installed over BOP stack to protect from excessive heat. Repairing/modification job of damaged casing head housing is in progress. Once the modification arrangement is completed, cement dumping to casing annulus will be carried out. All cementing equipment and material are being mobilised. Kill lines have been made ready for cement 'pack off' job. Well killing operations would be attempted once these jobs are completed."

OIL spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika said that if things went well then, they expect to make another attempt to kill the blowout well by next Wednesday. When asked how come a gas well operating for 10 long years could exert an outflow pressure of 4500 psi, the OIL spokesperson said that it was science and not speculation and went contrary to the actual fact because the BGN -5 gas well at Baghjan became operational from the year 2015 only. "It is, therefore, quite natural that it can exert so much of outflow pressure up to 10-15 years of its operation," he said.

Also Watch: #NewsMakers: The Baghjan Saga