Burning since June 9, a well blowout at Baghjan, India had foiled all who were tasked with somehow stopping the flames. Oil India Limited (OIL) tried regional companies and then it reached out internationally. Now one was able to fix this well blowout until they called in Piston Well Services Inc. The Red Deer based company was able to kill the well within days.
Alert Disaster Control (ALERT), with their well intervention service partner, Piston Well Services, have completed the critical well killing operation in Assam, India.
Piston Well Services mobilized a 142K Snubbing/Hydraulic Workover Unit and specialists to India to assist ALERT in the final phase of the well kill operation. Oil India Limited. officially designated the well as ‘killed’ on November 15 at 1400 hrs local time.
ALERT and Piston Well Services thank everyone that contributed and persevered through the unprecedented logistical challenges to support the operations. Oil India Limited’s commitment to the successful conclusion of the operations, will continue to support the local community and ensure the ongoing protection of the sensitive adjoining wetland areas. #canadianenergy#albertaenergy#teampiston
Tinsukia, Nov 15: Oil India Limited (OIL) on Sunday finally achieved success in killing the blowout well at Baghjan in Assam’s Tinsukia district, almost five and a half months after the blowout occured on May 27.
The development came two hours after the “kill fluid” was pumped into the well at a depth of 3600 metres as part of the last phase of snubbing operation.
The good news comes in the evening
OIL tweeted at 5.35 pm on Sunday: “Baghjan blowout well successfully killed: The well has been killed with brine solution & under control now. Fire has been doused completely. There is no pressure in the well now & the same will be observed for 24 hours to check if there is any amount of gas migration & pressure build up.”
Talking to NewsFileonline, OIL spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika said the process to inject the kill fluid started around 11 am on Sunday and soon positive results were visible. “However, it will take few more hours before achieving 100 per cent success,” he said.
“Director (exploration and development ) P Chandrasekaran, director (operations) PK Goswami and resident chief executive BK Dad visited the Baghjan well site and had detailed discussions with the experts from Alert (Damage Control) and OIL crisis management team (CMT),” said Hazarika, adding: “Further operations to abandon the well is in progress.”
The way ahead
According to an OIL source involved with the operation, the next step would be to pull out the pipes which will be followed by cementing the well. “Once it is done and tested, the snubbing unit will be uninstalled, blowout preventer (BoP) will be removed and X-mas tree will be placed before the well is abandoned.”
In August, OIL succeeded in capping the blowout well by installing BoP on the well head after two failed attempts on July 31 and August 10.
However, the kill-the-well operation failed following detection of a leakage at the casing well head and here’s when the global experts from M/s Alert Damage Control decided to move in for snubbing operation and tied up with Alberta-based Piston Well Services to move in its snubbing unit alongwith four crew members.
The 60-ton snubbing unit was flown in from Canada’s Calgary by the world’s largest cargo aircraft — Antonov An-24, to Kolkata in the third week of October and it reached the blowout well site on November 4.
On September 13, OIL succeeded in diversion of the gas after a failed attempt and used the opportunity to start partial production from a well under blowout for the first time in OIL’s history.
What is snubbing unit and the process?
A snubbing unit is a hydraulic rig that can do everything a rig can do in addition to its ability to perform under pressure in an under balanced live well state.
Snubbing operation is a type of heavy well intervention performed on oil and gas wells. It involves running the BHA on a pipe string using a hydraulic workover rig. Unlike wireline or coiled tubing, the pipe is not spooled off a drum but made up and broken up while running in and pulling out, much like conventional drill pipe.
In oil parlance, the well is killed at the bottom by inserting pipes and pumping mud through this new pipe. Killing entails injecting artificial mud into the well at very high pressure to fill up the well and stop the gas from rising to the surface.
Due to the large rigup, it is only used for the most demanding of operations when lighter intervention techniques do not offer the strength and durability. The first snubbing unit was primarily designed to work in well control situations to “snub” drill pipe and or casing into, or out of, a well bore when conventional well killing methods could not be used. Unlike conventional drilling and completions operations, snubbing can be performed with the well still under pressure (not killed). When done so, it is called hydraulic workover. It can also be performed without having to remove the Christmas tree from the wellhead.
Baghjan gas well No 5 — India’s longest well on fire
OIL has 22 producing wells, 18 oil wells and four gas wells at Baghjan Oil Field in Tinsukia district.
The “blowout” occured at the gas well No. 5 at Baghjan oilfield, in the proximity of Maguri-Motapung Beel and Dibru Saikhowa National Park, while workover operations were under way to produce gas from new sand (oil and gas bearing reservoir) at a depth of 3,729 metres. This caused natural gas and condensate oil gush to hundreds of feet in the air and spill all around.
The well caught fire on June 9 and has been raging for 160 days before finally getting doused today.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday night declaring a national energy emergency.
Trump announced the order earlier in the day during his Inauguration Speech.
“We will drill baby drill,” Trump said. “We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”
The order states that high energy prices are an “active threat to the American people.”
“The policies of the previous administration have driven our Nation into a national emergency, where a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid, require swift and decisive action,” the order said. “In light of these findings, I hereby declare a national emergency.”
To solve high prices and remedy the “numerous problems” with America’s energy infrastructure, the order stated that the delivery of energy infrastructure must be “expedited” and the nation’s energy supply facilitated “to the fullest extent possible.”
This was one of many executive orders the president signed on his first day in office.
In another order signed Monday night, Trump declared it was time to unleash American energy.
“In recent years, burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the development of these resources, limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens,” the order said. “It is thus in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.”
All this will be done through encouraging energy exploration, the elimination the electric vehicle mandates, and safeguarding “the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances.”
The order promises these measures will “restore American prosperity,” “establish our position as the leading producer,” and “protect the United States’s economic and national security and military preparedness.”
In an earlier signing of executive orders in front of a crowd of supporters at the Capital One Arena, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accords.
Elyse Apel is an apprentice reporter with The Center Square, covering Georgia and North Carolina. She is a 2024 graduate of Hillsdale College.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement.
The United States joins Iran, Libya, and Yemen as countries not part of the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming, the New York Times reported. Trump had previously pulled out of the agreement during his first term, only to see his successor, former president Joe Biden, re-enter it in 2021 after taking office.
This decision aims to increase fossil fuel production and reduce investment in clean energy technologies like electric vehicles and wind turbines, the outlet stated. Additionally, Trump notified the United Nations, which manages the Paris Agreement, of the U.S.’s withdrawal with a signed letter, setting the official exit to occur one year after its submission.
Trump has said in the past that the U.S. involvement in the Paris agreement harms America’s economic competitiveness and would not make a significant impact on the climate. He also said previously that the agreement was poorly negotiated and did not put American workers first.
The Biden administration implemented new emissions goals as part of its efforts to solidify its climate strategy. The Trump administration plans to deregulate the energy sector and roll back funding from Biden’s key climate initiatives. Since Nov. 5, members of Biden administration have distributed $1.6 billion in “environmental justice” grants, secured significant loans for green energy firms, empowered California regulators to influence the national auto market, and published a detailed analysis on the effects of liquefied natural gas exports, potentially hindering Trump’s efforts to expand them.
