BAGHJAN WELL BLOWOUT

The STORY so far...

"The workover operations were being carried out by Chartered Hire Rig owned by John
Energy under the supervision of OIL.

The plan was to move the workover rig to another well after closing Baghjan well 5. The
hydrocarbons were trapped between multiple zones at different depths in the same well.
Usually, HT-HP well shave two-three zones, but only one zone is worked upon at a time.
Since it was felt that production from the lower zone had fallen, a cement plug was put in
place and a blowout preventer installed,” as per a local official.

The blowout preventer is meant to prevent any spill over of oil and gas if the cement plug
does not solidify properly. Once the officials were convinced that the cement plug had
settled, they removed the blowout preventer to begin the process of moving the workover
rig.

“But the cement plug was not given enough time to settle and this is supposed to have led
to the sudden well explosion and spill over of crude oil and natural gas. Usually, the cement
plug is given between12 and 48 hours to settle. But in this case, it was not even given 12
hours,” the official disclosed.

IMPORTANT EVENTS

 In 2006 the well no. 5 in Baghjan oilfield was drilled at the depth of 3870 m and
produced between 80000-100000 scm of gas per day before leakage.
 In May 2020 a new reservoir was being tapped at depth of 3729 m with workover
operation taking place, the previous was being plugged as the production had
declined from that zone.
 On May 27th morning at 10.30 am, the well no 5 had a blowout while the workover
operation was taking place.
 On June 7th an expert team (Alert Disaster control) from Singapore reached the site
to take control on the well.
 On June 9th the well burst into flames while the well clearing operations were going
on.
 On 10th June two fire-fighters of OIL lost their life fighting the flame, also four fire
fighters were injured during the same. On the same day two OIL employees had
been suspended in connection with the blowout.
 On 21st June Assam state pollution control board ordered OIL to shut all production
from Baghjan field.
  21st July three experts from Singapore were injured while they were removing the
spool from the wellhead
 On 31st July first attempt was made to control the well which failed because of the
failure in hydraulic lift.
 During August multiple attempts were made to place the BOP on wellhead.
 On 10th August the second attempt failed because of the failure of excessive heat.
 On August 18th BOP was successfully placed on the wellhead on its third attempt.
But with the BOP installed the process of killing the well by injecting mud completely
to stop the production of natural gas was not successful and the well continued to
leak. OIL states the reason for the failure of leakage was that the valve in the well
casing collapsed.
 On 3rd September expert from Canada had been bought to attempt to cap the well
again.
 On September 9, 25-year-old electrical engineer who was electrocuted while
checking cables at the site
 OIL official stated that the latest plan was to divert the gas produced at this well into
two separate channels resulting in diversion of gas to the Baghjan Early Production
System (EPS) system while the remaining to the two flare pits.
 On 13th September OIL inched a step closer to kill the blowout well after it
succeeded in "restoration of diversion of gas" from blowout well to Baghjan EPS.

"Once the whole system is stabilised, next line of actions will be undertaken for well-killing
operation," Hazarika said, adding, "Wellhead pressures and related parameters are being
monitored constantly. All safety precautions are in place and the wellhead, BOP stack, choke
manifold & ground x-mas tree are being continuously sprayed with water for cooling
purpose."

According to sources, now that the diversion of gas operation has succeeded experts will go
for snubbing operation to kill the well in all likelihood.