DIBRUGARH, July 31 - Mishaps, bad weather, increasingly hostile locals, nothing is going well for the beleaguered Oil India Limited at its Baghjan disaster site near Tinsukia town. This morning, an improvised crane, called �Athey Wagon� toppled, resulting in stoppage of the placement of the blowout preventer equipment over the gas-spewing wellhead.
The mishap has ruined days of preparation to control the wellhead. The experts attending on the job are trying to figure out what caused the �Athey Wagon� crane to topple. The next course of action would now follow after due diligence by all the disaster mitigation experts who are on the job.
Meanwhile, an OIL press release issued today said all other preparations for the final killing exercises are ready since Thursday. These include oilwell killing fluid, formulated specifically for the high pressure wellhead. Other equipment like six high discharge water pumps and two other water pumps are working to maintain the �water umbrella� above the wellhead.
Elsewhere at Baghjan, due to stoppage/blockades of several producing wells, there was production loss of 652 MT of crude oil and 1.53 MMSCM of natural gas as reported at end of production day on Thursday. Since May 27, OIL claims to have lost 18,852 tons of crude oil production and almost 45 million cubic metres of gas from its Tinsukia district operations alone.
