Another oil spill occurs at Trebs field during well repairs
MOSCOW. Oct 16 (Interfax) - Another oil spill occurred at the Trebs field during work being performed on another well by LLC Bashkortostan Well Repair Division (BURS), the Nenets Autonomous District branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry reported on its website.
During reentry at well #10, the blowout preventer (BOP) equipment was depressurized, resulting in a blowout of oily fluid.
The general director of LLC Bashneft-Polyus, a joint venture between Bashneft and Lukoil that is developing the Trebs field, informed the regional Emergency Situations Ministry of the incident, noting that there was a spill of water- and oil-containing liquid within the boundaries of the well #10 site at the Roman Trebs field on October 14.
"The well was brought under control by pumping kill fluid into it, and immediate measures were undertaken to eradicate the incident. But on October 15 the incident was moved to the emergency category, with a spill and substantial pollution by the spraying of oily fluid," the Emergency Situations Ministry reported.
Forty-five people and 15 vehicles worked at the site of the incident, and the spill was stopped. According to preliminary estimates, around 130 cubic meters of oily fluid spilled over an area topping 1,000 square meters.
No fire broke out at the scene, and no one was injured. Work is now under way to clean up the spill.
This is the second accident to occur at the Trebs field during well reentry performed by LLC BURS. In April, an unsealed wellhead spewed a mixture of oil and gas into the surrounding environment. The Federal Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Oversight Agency (Rostekhnadzor) established that the accident occurred in part because of the LLC BURS personnel's lack of experience repairing deep wells in Far North conditions.
In the wake of the spill, Bashneft laid off Senior Vice President for oil and gas production Alexander Dashevsky and the company's oil and gas department director, Rinat Nagayev. Bashneft said that it has worked up and is already implementing a program aimed at preventing similar accidents in the future.