Direct ONGC to step up efforts to control gas leak at Sivasagar oil well, Assam CM urges Centre

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday urged Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri to direct the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation to step up efforts and control the leakage of gas that has continued for the past week.

The gas leakage began after a blowout at an ONGC crude oil well in Sivasasagar district on June 12. A private firm named SK Petro Services was operating the well on behalf of the central public sector undertaking, PTI reported.

About 1,500 persons have been affected by the incident, the news agency quoted an unidentified district official as saying on June 15. Seventy families have been shifted to a relief camp in the nearby Bangaon town.

Sarma, in the letter to Puri on Tuesday, said that more than 330 families had to be evacuated from the nearby area and the state government was providing them with basic relief and safety measures.

“While the district administration and state agencies are fully engaged on the ground, I am constrained to convey that the local perception is one of inadequate urgency and seriousness in ONGC’s response,” the Assam chief minister said. “Unlike previous incidents handled with a war-footing, the current approach appears procedural and lacking in visibility.”

Sarma noted that ONGC was engaged in efforts to control the leak through water blanketing, high-volume mud pumping and using junk shots. However, he said that despite these measures, the well remained active.

“The prolonged nature of the incident is causing considerable distress in the surrounding villages,” he said.

Sarma urged Puri to direct ONGC to “reinforce its technical and leadership presence on-site, adopt a more mission-mode approach and step up engagement with the affected communities to restore confidence and bring the situation under control at the earliest”.

Since the gas leak, residents of the nearby villages have not been able to light their stoves, PTI quoted an unidentified district official as saying on June 15. “We are providing them with cooked food and constantly monitoring the situation,” she said.

The district administration said that doctors from the health department and the animal husbandry department were examining the residents and their domestic animals.

ONGC on Tuesday said it had begun an internal inquiry into the reason for the incident, the Assam Tribune reported. Bhaskar Choudhury, executive director of ONGC’s Assam Asset, said that the leak from the well was unprecedented.

“We have data spanning the past 60 years, and we’ve never encountered anything like this before,” Choudhury said. “This area has never seen a gas deposit of this magnitude.”

The official emphasised: “We are not running away – we remain fully committed to resolving the situation responsibly.”

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