An accident at the blowout natural gas well in eastern Assam’s Baghjan on Wednesday left three of the six foreign experts, flown in more than a month ago to control the disaster, injured.
Well No 5 near the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park is one of the 22 crude oil and natural gas wells operated by the Oil India Limited (OIL) in its Baghjan Oilfield in Tinsukia district. It had burst into flames almost a fortnight after experiencing a blowout — uncontrolled escape of gas at great speed — on May 27 .
Not a blast
“It was not a blast but a work-related accident where a lateral fire took place. They received minor injures at the fag-end of the critical operation to successfully remove a damaged spool,” OIL spokesperson Tridib Hazarika said.
The three injured were from the Singapore-based Alert Disaster Control. Doug Dallas was slightly more injured in the right hand than the other two — Anthony Steven Reynolds and Craig Neil Duncan.
“They were taken to a private nursing home in Dibrugarh from where they were released. They will resume operation tomorrow [Thursday] for installing the blowout preventer,” Mr. Hazarika said.
Installation of the blowout preventer on the remaining undamaged spools within “a day or two” is expected to tame the fire on the well.
Also read: 13 days after blowout, Oil India Limited well in Assam catches fire
Operations delayed
OIL officials said removal of the damaged spool could have been done earlier had the operations not been delayed first by floods and then by blockades by local people forcing them to shut down 12 wells in the vicinity of the blazing blowout well.
OIL has been dishing out more than ₹30 lakh per day on the six foreign experts — the three others are from the U.S. and Canada. These experts were on the verge of going back to their countries after locals had virtually held them captive for 18 hours at the Baghjan site on July 18.
