KUWAIT: Fire fighters plug first of burning Kuwaiti oil wells

Record ID: 344586

  • Title: KUWAIT: Fire fighters plug first of burning Kuwaiti oil wells
  • Date: 26th March 1991
  • Summary: GREATER BURGAN OIL FIELD, KUWAIT (MARCH 26, 1991) (VISNEWS) VIEWS OF BURNING OIL WELLS TEXAS OIL FIRE FIGHTERS CONNECTING ROPE TO WIRE CAGE SURROUNDING BURNING WELL HEAD OIL WORKER RAY WADLEY OF WILD WELL CONTROL SAYING HE HOPES TO FINISH CAPPING ALL THE BURNING WELLS IN KUWAIT OVER THE NEXT 18 MONTHS (ENGLISH SPEECH). POOLS OF OIL OIL WELL, NO LONGER BURNING, GUSHING
  • Embargoed: 10th April 1991 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KUWAIT
  • Country: Kuwait
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVAAYW1VHWRSVAD1BZDTTC44Y1G2
  • Story Text: Firefighters plugged the first of 540 burning Kuwaiti oil wells on Tuesday (March 26), pumping mud deep underground to "kill" a well that had spewed millions of dollars worth of crude oil.
    The workers, from the Wild Well Control Company of Houston, Texas, which handled the job, connected a pipe to an oil well head and forced 250 barrels of special heavy clay imported from Britian down a spewing oil well for about 30 minutes.
    After a few belches of compressed gas and a final squirt of oil, mud spewed from the head, signaling that the well had been plugged.
    "Now we go to the next one," said Joe Bowden of Wild Well.
    "It's a small step, but it's important that we got this one off the ground." An estimated 800 of Kuwait's 980 oil wells were damaged during the Iraqi occupation of the emirate, burning about 600 barrels a day -- there are 160 liters to a barrel -- worth more than 120 million USD.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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