‘100 feet fireball’: What led to gas leak, blowout in ONGC well in AP’s Konaseema district; 300 families evacuated

RAJAHMUNDRY: A suspected leak in a gas pipeline during maintenance works led to a massive fire and explosion in a oil well of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in Dr BR Ambedkar Konaseema district of Andhra Pradesh on Monday, triggering chaos and panic in the area and nearby villages for some time. Fortunately, there were no reports of any deaths or injuries to anyone in the mishap.Operated by Deep Industries, a production contractor of ONGC, the blaze happened during production enhancement operations at the well. The incident happened at a drilling site in Irsumanda village under Malikipuram mandal of Konaseema district. At about 11.30 am, the gas leak led to crude oil from the well shooting up to nearly 100 feet in a huge ball of fire. As thick smoke engulfed the area following the explosion, people living in the nearby area rushed out in panic. About 300 families have also been evacuated.Konaseema district collector R Mahesh Kumar said the drilling location was explored earlier by ONGC and later it was abandoned. In Sep 2024, ONGC sub-leased the site to Deep Industries for further operations. "We have evacuated people from within one kilometre radius of the blowout," he said. An ONGC official said as part of efforts to assess the availability of resources and test gas reserves, Deep Industries recently resumed operations at the already-drilled well. As primary drilling was completed earlier, the company undertook perforation activity by going deeper up to approximately 2.7 kilometres using a 'workover rig'. During this operation, the leak and subsequent blowout happened, he said. Meanwhile, chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu enquired about the incident, and directed the authorities to ensure that people living in nearby areas are not affected.