Industry Mishap NEWS

The contractor has downplayed an incident that took place during work to dismantle what’s left of the Buchan Alpha oil rig. A video appears to show a worker attempting to run to safety when the structure he’s cutting into with a blowtorch, in waters off Shetland, becomes detached and off-balance. No one was injured and the Health and Safety Executive has not been involved.

A supertanker carrying about 2 million barrels of oil caught fire in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Sri Lanka. The tanker was sailing towards India’s Paradip refinery when it caught fire. One of the 23 crew members is found missing and one injured. The navy personnel at the scene have reported that fire was under control.

Baghjan’s high-pressured gas well was finally capped by successfully placing the BOP at the well head after a long struggle of 83 days. The well capping operation by the alert team was assisted by the crisis management teams of OIL, ONGC and Schlumberger. Placing the BOP successfully atop the well head was quite a challenging task for the team considering its sheer weight and the risky working environment.

US-based well control company, Wild Well Control and Oil Spill Response have formed an alliance to provide increased capability to the O&G industry. The collaboration between the two companies is designed to meet industry and regulatory expectations for a strong source control emergency response planning solution. The collaboration is said to provide a ‘one-stop solution’ to the O&G industry that covers all aspects of the emergency response.

Crew members of OIL, ONGC, Alert, Schlumberger and other contractors are at the gas well site in Baghjan and the final preparations for placing capping stack is underway, The gas well site in Baghjan witnessed an inferno a month ago. The capping stack was ready and wrapped with a ceramic blanket and ceramic cloths. A team from IIT Guwahati completed data collection for thermal imaging and sound measurement at required areas under the guidance of district officials and the OIL team.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc shut on Saturday the gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker at its 318,000 barrel-per-day joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery after a fire, sources familiar with plant operations said on Sunday. All individuals were safe and accounted for at the Shell Deer Park Complex, which includes the refinery and adjoining chemical plant. The Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint venture between Shell and Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company.

Brazil state-controlled oil major, Petrobras reported a fire incident at its Duque de Caixas refinery, forcing the authorities to operate the refinery at half of its installed capacity. However, the company said in an email late on Monday that the fire would not affect deliveries as the inventories were already equipped. The company also did not provide a date on when production will return to normal levels.

Two staffers of Oil India Ltd have been suspended for alleged negligence of duty in the gas well blowout at Baghjan in Assam’s Tinsukia district. Earlier, Oil India Ltd (OIL) Chairman and MD Sushil Chandra Mishra said a five-member inquiry committee was formed and actions would be initiated on employees of the company if there was any prima facie evidence of human error.

On May 27, oil and natural gas began to gush out uncontrollably from the Baghjan oil field in Assam’s Tinsukia district in an event known in industry parlance as a blowout. But even as OIL officials and engineers scrambled to contain the leak, a fire broke out on Tuesday afternoon, birthing a towering inferno at the site. Over 2,000 people have been moved to relief camps since the blowout occurred.

A three-member expert team from a Singapore-based emergency management firm on Monday reached Assam's Tinsukia district from where gas is "uncontrollably" flowing out from a well for the past 13 days. State-owned Oil India Limited (OIL) brought the foreign experts to control their gas well blowout at the Baghjan village in Tinsukia, around 550 km east of Guwahati, after natural gas started spewing since May 27.

Following the May 27th blowout at OIL's Baghjan well, the state-run oil major has called top experts from Singapore's Alert Disaster Control to tackle the uncontrolled gas leak from the site. A statement from the firm read, "All safety and security measures are continuously being monitored to protect surrounding villagers and their properties,". The Baghjan blowout is the second in 15 years at an OIL installation.

Oil India Limited (OIL) authorities in Assam’s Tinsukia district shifted 25 families to safety after a natural gas producing well reported a blowout on Wednesday morning. An OIL press statement said that blowout occurred at the Baghjan-5 well at 10.30 am. The well suddenly became very active while the operation was on, the statement added.

A team of Forensic experts examined the site for two days and claimed that the gas leakage happened due to human error and negligence. The cooling process was not maintained during the lockdown and this resulted in the generation of enormous amounts of heat and vapors started coming out of the breathers, said the experts. This laxity resulted in the death of 12 people, whilst hundreds were hospitalized.

A crude oil spill due to pipeline bursting prompted by a landslide this week has Ecuador sweating as it tries to limit the environmental impact in the country’s Amazon region. A statement released by the Ecuadorean Energy Ministry said that it had put barriers around the spill in an area inhabited by indigenous communities and near a drinking water source for the city of El Coca.

In an unfortunate event on Sunday, 15 people died in a gas explosion in Lagos, injuring many more and destroying around 50 buildings. State-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said that the blast happened due to a truck that "hit gas bottles stacked up in a gas processing plant. National emergency services spokesman told AFP, "15 bodies have been recovered now. So many people have been injured," .

Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy has informed about an oil well fire at one of its drill sites in Texas, saying that emergency personnel are responding to the situation. Local media in Burleson County have claimed multiple injuries at the site, approximately 75 miles east of Austin. Chesapeake spokesperson did not respond to questions on injuries.

Sri Chakra Oil Mill in East Godavari District caught fire yesterday. It took about eight hours for firefighters to put out the fire, managing to save the main factory and nearby oil storage tanks. Although the actual reason behind the fire is yet to be known, sub-inspector Anaparthi suspects an electrical short circuit to be the reason for the fire. No casualties were reported due to the accident.

No casualties or operational damage were reported in a small fire at Phillip 66’s 139,000-barrel-per-day Los Angeles refinery in Wilmington, California on Tuesday. The fire was extinguished in the meantime by Los Angeles’ City Fire Department while the cause of the fire is still under investigation of Port Police and County HOWZMAT.