Assam: High pressure spillage, OIL finally succeeds in capping shut-in well after 3 days

The Oil India Limited (OIL) has finally succeeded in capping the high pressure spillage of fluids from the shut-in well in at Dirial in Assam’s Dibrugarh district this afternoon. The success could be achieved on the 4th day since the incident was reported.

OIL Spokesperson Bhairob Bhuyan spoke to Northeast Live on the development and said, “Today morning itself we had started the operations and we could cap the well around 12:50 PM. Now everything is normal. We will take some other measures, that is a normal routine job to kill the well. That is our routine job. So we have successfully done, it is totally an inhouse effort, we are happy that we could do it. We thank all the OIL team including the local administration. They are also always in support with us. WE are really happy for today’s operations.”

The OIL spokesperson also lauded the efforts of the inhouse officials as well as other manpower involved in the operations.

Bhuyan said, “You know that high pressure water jet was coming out from the reservoir that is why it was very difficult to place a BOP or any X Mas tree above that to cap the well. But today we have placed a BOP, it is a heavy one but finally our people had to interfere, I mean manual handling was necessary. In this high pressure spillage situation our people went ahead and really did a courageous job. That is why we could do it. Without manual handling it could not have been a success. You have seen it in the last 2 days, we could not do it because there was manual handling. But our people went inside the radius of the high pressure area and did it manually.”

On Saturday, Oil CMD Ranjeet Rath visited the leakage site and took stock of the situation. Oil had also alerted ONGC, to send experts if the situation arises.

The corporation has claimed that the situation was a fallout of reported miscreant activity during which miscreants completely cut and stole the entire X-Mass tree above the adapter of the well. In this regard, OIL has lodged an FIR with the local Police and informed the District Administration Authority.