In a major setback to Public sector giant Oil India Limited (OIL), the operation to kill the well failed on Tuesday, just a day after the company had successfully managed to cap the blowout well at Baghjan oilfield in Assam's Tinsukia district. The Oilwell has been engulfed in a fire since June 9. According to the official spokesperson of OIL, Tridiv Hazarika, the operation at the site has been unsuccessful due to due to blowing out of the valve on 13.3/8" casing and the mud is going through the same profusely.
"The kill mud could not be pumped to the intended zone due to the leakage; hence, mud pumping had to be stopped immediately. Next course of action will be decided by the global experts," an online news portal EastMojo quoted Hazarika as saying. Notably, after the fire had broken out, OIL hired Alert Damage Control, one of the few global expertize, to control the blowout at Baghjan.
News Ignored by media at large
Its been almost three months since the fire broke out in the OIL India's Tinsukia well but still, the mainstream media has decided to give it a miss. Only a selected media, especially regional, has extensively been covering the issue. The incidence has created a massive environmental challenge in the region but still not much has been covered by the National media.
One of India's biggest gaswell blowouts @OilIndiaLimited Baghjan #Assam today turned into an inferno pic.twitter.com/p2zyUjgXyO
— Rituparna Bhuyan (@rituparnabhuyan) June 9, 2020
Meanwhile, OIL finally managed to cap the well on August 17, after two failed attempts. The output came within 83 days of the blowout. Earlier, on July 31, OIL made the first attempt to mount the blowout preventer toppled after the 90-feet Athey Wagon, which had a test capacity of around 20 tonnes. After inching closer to cap the well 10 days later, the second effort failed.
The blowout happened at Baghjan oilfield gas well number 5, closer to the Maguri-Motapung Beel and Dibru Saikhowa National Park. Construction was underway to extract gas from new sand (oil and gas-bearing reservoir) at a depth of 3,730 m, leaving natural gas and condensing oil gush into the air.
