A team of ONGC engineers with support from Indian Navy ​has successfully plugged a gas leakage on an unmanned offshore platform in Mumbai High South. The leakage was around 180 ​kilometer from the seashore in the Arabian Sea.

An ONGC statement said that a gas leakage was observed in one of the unmanned wellhead platforms S1-6 in the south field of Mumbai High.

As a safety measure, the platform team immediately initiated all remote actions to shut down the well platform and to bleed off the pressure in the pipelines. Fire-fighting vessels were instantly deployed near the platform to provide water blanketing by continuously spraying water.

Due to extremely bad weather conditions with a high wind speed of up to 35 knots, swell of 3.5 meters and strong surface currents in sea, it was not safe for the ONGC team to land at the unmanned platform by helicopter or transfer them by multi support vessel.

Having exhausted all available options to transfer the ONGC team to S1-6 Platform, the company approached the Indian Navy for help. After detailed discussions between ONGC and Indian Navy, it was decided to winch down ONGC team with the help of Indian Navy commandos.

The ‘Seaking’ helicopter N555 of Indian Navy reached the ONGC process platform and took the ONGC technical team to S1-6.

A company statement said that ​while the ONGC team was well trained in all safety aspects in high seas, it ​had no previous training or experience of winching down from helicopter. The team comprising BKB Patel, Sanjib Kumar, Ravindra Kumar and S K Khakhalary quickly learnt the technique and in synergy with Navy commandos landed on the unmanned well head platform S1-6.

Braving rough weather, the team identified the leakage source successfully and safely plugged it within one hour making the well ready to flow​, the statement said.​

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