A 2,200-metre deep exploratory well of the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) at Kadi taluka, 90 kms from Ahmedabad, started gushing out oil and gas at high pressure and went out of control around 8.30 pm on Saturday.
Till late on Sunday evening (over 24 hours later), the situation could not be brought under control and the ONGC crisis-management team, with the assistance of Ahmedabad fire-brigade personnel, was striving to plug the oil and gas gushing.
ONGC chairman and managing director Subir Raha, who was in Mumbai, and director (offshore) V K Sharma, rushed to the site in Kadi on Sunday morning.
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Elaborating on what caused the leakage, ONGC general manager (P&A) S K Jain said, "We had already drilled this exploratory well and were testing the second zone at a depth of 1,975 metre, when it all started. Though we had already plugged it, the oil and gas gushed out with such a heavy pressure that the plug got eroded and the leakage went out of control."
"The gushing oil is now being pumped into a pit nearby and we would now try to plug the well again tomorrow (Monday). Since all the requisite preparations have already been completed today, we are confident that things would be set right tomorrow," he added.