DIBRUGARH, July 4 - Despite facing flak from several quarters, including nasty social media comments, the Oil India Limited (OIL) is slowly but steadily inching on to douse the fire at one of its worst-ever field disasters, the inferno at Baghjan in Tinsukia that is burning up excess of 80,000 cubic metres of natural gas and condensates daily. The losses: Crores of rupees, not taking into account the extreme hardships forced on a population of over 10,000 innocent villagers for more than a month.
All the equipment have reached the disaster site. By Saturday afternoon, all major machinery required for the final assault on the 90 to 100-feet tall roaring fire have reached Baghjan. A second heavy duty bulldozer has also reached the site, and is being cladded in a heat shield, prior to actual deployment. After the fire is extinguished, the BOP (blow out preventer) would be installed, and then observed for a couple of days for its efficacy.
An engineer who is in the know of the developments said the final assault could commence by Monday, weather permitting. Crisis management workers at the site are working against time to put in place the heavy duty water pumps at the site.
The earlier move was to deploy two such pumps. A third is also being deployed, just in case it is required. Additional piping is also being installed, as the Army-built pontoon bridge went astray following last week�s heavy floods.
The engineer said work has been delayed by a couple of days due to severe weather conditions and flooding of the accident site. This required undoing and re-doing several chores, eating up time and resources.
On the road from the Gelapukhuri side towards Baghjan over the Maguri Beel, debris clearance for bio remediation job is being carried out along the roadside.
While seismic vibration recordings are being continuously done by the NEIST (RRL-Jorhat) technicians, the problem of tremors continues nonstop. Five sets of sensors, including an accelerometer, are recording this data.
Till today, 895 families of the Doomdooma and Tinsukia Circles have been surveyed for damage and compensation assessment. This is being done under the guidance of the Tinsukia district administration. However, it is not clear what would be the quantum of compensation or rehabilitation. With several �committees� on the job, confusion is the only thing that prevails, says a leader of the Assam Muttuck Yuva Federation.
Till Friday evening, OIL claims to have incurred production losses to the tune of 9,072 metric tons of crude oil and one crore sixteen lakh cubic metres of natural gas from the company�s operations in the Tinsukia district. The production losses is said to be calculated from May 27 this year as the cutoff date. On Saturday, the company�s operations have been disrupted due to agitations at three oil-well locations in the district, an OIL press release stated.
