Crisis management - a case study

                                                        Sagar Vikas on fire

At 9:25 pm on Friday, July 30, 1982, the telephone buzzed in my Altamount Road apartment in Bombay. I had just returned from one of those interminable ministerial meetings in Delhi and was looking forward to a good night’s sleep. But the caller from the control room was insistent.

 “Please inform Member Offshore that there has been a blow-out on Sagar Vikas.”

 Sagar Vikas was one of ONGC’s latest jack up drilling rigs and was drilling on well SJ 5 in Bombay High, 100 miles from the shore. At 9:15 pm – or ten minutes earlier—the well suffered a blowout. As oil and gas gushed forth uncontrollably from the stricken well, the danger of a major fire, which could spread to rest of the field, loomed large. I asked whether all of the 74-member crew were safe and was reassured that all had been rescued and hauled away to safety and that there were no casualties despite monsoon winds of 30 mph and wave heights of over 15 feet. At my insistence, the control room promised to recheck the safe wellbeing of each member of the crew and report back.

I raced to the control room at Maker Towers on Cuffe Parade. One of our senior drilling engineers, S.C. Mitthal, had already reached the control room at the airport and he was to describe in detail the blow out and its aftermath.

“How bad is it? And do we need help?”.

Mittal’s reply was categorical, “Sir, we have never dealt with a major blowout offshore and we will need the help of experts.”

The operational plan was hammered out even as two helicopters were readied to fly to the blowout site. Within four hours, Gulf Fleet 46, a supply vessel, was at the site spewing a jet of water to form a screen over the threatened rig, which, fortunately was still only gushing gas and had not yet caught fire. Within 24 hours, this boat was joined by another multi purpose vessel, the Pacific Constructor. Other fire fighting vessels were being tracked to see how many could steam quickly to the scene, with the main objective being to ensure that the rig did not catch fire. At the same time, I asked my special assistant, Atul Chandra, to contact Red Adair, the best firefighter in the world, in Houston to check how soon his team could be mobilized to help cap the well.

With the preliminary trouble-shooting over, a few senior officers and I flew by helicopter to Sagar Pragati, another of ONGC’s rigs that was operating about five kilometers away from the blowout site. Within an hour, H.S.Cheema, the general manager for drilling, joined me, and we spent the night assessing the hazards and the options that we had, including landing on the rig. From our temporary headquarters on Sagar Pragati, we watched and waited and planned. Five kilometers away, Sagar Vikas looked lonely and deserted. But the generator on the rig kept on purring as if nothing had happened, and all the rig lights were ablaze. The lights had been deliberately left on to ensure the safety of the disembarking crew on Friday night. The rig’s helipad, enveloped by misty gas, was virtually invisible. The generator now posed a possible problem as it could spark the fire itself. We spent the night examining alternative ways of reducing the risk of the well catching fire. 

One of the most obvious risks was the lighting and the generator on the platform. Any exposed wire or short circuit could lead to igniting the gas, which now swirled about the entire platform, enveloping it in a thin mist. The main worry that confronted us was that a spark - any stray spark - could set the whole rig ablaze. So far, the improvised water screens had managed to put out every such spark, but the clusters of cables that hung from the bracings were continuing to rattle dangerously in the high-speed winds. The wild well could also be spewing stones that could collide against the metal casings or anything else and ignite a spark to cause a fire. And could this fire spread to other platforms in the area? What could be done to safeguard the “Bombay High, the gem of India’s oil industry?"

After much debate, Cheema put together a small team, which was to approach the platform from a supply vessel and try and land a few of the staff onto the platform to clamber up to the generator room from the sea level and attempt to turn off the generator. I went down to speak to this team and told them of the importance of their task to the BOP and the country. It was a risky plan and I told them that if any of them was not keen to undertake it, I would understand. Cheema was unhappy that I had asked for volunteers for this team, for he was afraid that many would back out given the option. But, as I expected, not one member of the team backed out and soon they were on their way to the rig on their perilous journey and task. We were in constant communication with their supply vessel as it approached the stricken rig. The seas were heavy and choppy with an occasional fifteen-feet-high wave, and it was difficult to maneuver the supply vessel near the rig. We did not want the supply vessel to dash into the rig and become the spark that might light the fire. After many valiant and vain attempts in the middle of the night, the supply vessel was ordered back and we decided to wait for daylight and for the seas to lessen before making another attempt.

By early morning, Colonel. S.P. Wahi, the new Chairman of ONGC, flew in from Delhi. We decided to make another attempt to land on the rig, but this time using a helicopter. So in a daring operation, the helicopter landed on the left leg of the drilling rig, a man got out and clambered some 25 feet down the derrick like structure, switched off the generator and climbed back up and into the helicopter. It was daring effort. But it was to prove to be of little avail. 

On Monday morning, confirming our worst fears and expectations, Sagar Vikas caught fire and a blazing inferno soon enveloped the rig. A large plume of fire now enveloped the rig. The sixty feet high fire could be seen from Bombay some hundred miles away and every departing airplane from the nearby Santa Cruz airport, it seemed to me, made a detour to fly over this awe-inspiring sight in the middle of the sea. Now our attention turned to controlling the fire and capping the raging well. 

During this period, I was fighting on three fronts. The first and most important was to control the fire on the rig and the well capped. With the arrival of the Red Adair team, we had the best experts in the world on fire fighting doing the planning. A team from ONGC was attached with them to assist them and also to learn from them. We were sure that the fire would be controlled, but we were for the time being at the mercy of the elements. The waves had to die down so that the fire fighting teams could land on the platform. We were, however, in the middle of the monsoon and it was difficult to predict when that would be, despite our daily discussions with the Indian meteorological department.

The second important issue was to ensure the safety of the Bombay High platforms and rigs and to find ways to continue oil production. A drop in oil production was the big fear in the government and they periodically wanted reassurance from me that the fire in Bombay High would not affect our country’s total oil production for the year. Calculations had showed that even with the loss of the stricken rig, we would be able to maintain oil production at the planned levels by utilizing alternative pipelines that had already been installed earlier. Besides that, there was fear that the gas from the blowout well could spread to the other rigs and platforms in the Bombay High area and possibly lead to additional fires. We started an intensive monitoring program to make sure that the gas intensity in the vicinity of other rigs and platforms was low and that there was no fear of the fire spreading.

The third, and the most delicate, issue was to deal with the press and the parliament. Both were gravely concerned and hungry for news on what was happening in Bombay High. S.P. Wahi, the chairman of the company, had realized early on the need for effective communication with both, and spent considerable time with them. He instituted a daily press briefing to update the journalists and undertook to fly them to the site once it was safe. He went on national TV to reassure the country that the fire was under control and that there was no risk of the fire spreading over the rest of Bombay High. Parliament, being fully briefed, passed a motion praising the staff of ONGC for their sacrifice and efforts and promised all assistance required.

Fortunately, Red Adair and his team landed in Bombay in the early hours of Tuesday, August 3, just three days after the blowout occurred. On their arrival, we whisked the whole team directly to the rig and then to Sagar Pragati to determine what the next steps were to be. I was to learn later that while we had contacted Red Adair, who was considered to be the best firefighter in the world, he had also been contacted by Armand Hammer, the billionaire owner of Occidental Petroleum. Apparently, Mrs. Gandhi was in the US during this period and was at dinner with Armand Hammer when the Petroleum Secretary relayed to her the news of the Bombay High blowout. Hammer had offered then and there to call Red Adair and to ask him to proceed to India without waiting for his normal $1 million retainer. As it turned out, Red Adair did not charge ONGC for his services, although his company did.

As I escorted this four-man team, the leader, Red Adair, appeared to me to be such an unlikely firefighter. Contrary to my expectations he was only 5’7” tall, was totally unassuming and had a laid back manner. But Red Adair had acquired a worldwide reputation as the foremost firefighter of oil and gas well fires. 

Paul N. "Red" Adair, born June 18, 1915 in Houston, Texas, was the son of a blacksmith and one of a family of eight. Growing up during the Great Depression, Red Adair had dropped out of high school to work and help his family make ends meet. He bounced through several jobs before joining the Army during WWII, where he found himself working in bomb disposal. Something about explosions appealed to this young man, and after the war he went to work for Myron Kinley, a world-famous freelance firefighter who specialized in the especially dangerous work of putting out oil well fires. Some fourteen years later, in 1959, Red founded his own company, Red Adair Company and soon became the world's leading specialist on oil well fire control. He had acquired the nickname "Red" in childhood because of his ginger hair; and, although he claimed to dislike it, he was not blind to the possibilities it presented: he liked to sport long red underwear, red asbestos overalls, red boots and a red helmet. After he achieved success, he drove a red Bentley and a red Cadillac, and owned a red boat, which he called Blowout. Adair plied his dangerous trade for more than half a century. Whenever a major fire occurred at an oil field, wherever it was on the map, Red Adair - who revolutionized the science of capping exploding and burning wells - was sure to be in attendance. He had perfected the technique of using explosives, mud and concrete to control and cap well fires. He had shot to fame when, in 1962, he fought a gas fire known as the Devil's Cigarette Lighter in the Sahara - a 450-foot (137m) pillar of flame. It had burned in the Sahara Desert for six months, consuming half-a-million cubic feet of gas every day. Adair and his crew extinguished that fire, and many more since then.

                                                           Red Adair and the author

After seeing the inferno on Sagar Vikas, he reviewed the various steps we had taken and the equipment we had ordered, added a few more and bade us to exercise patience in tacking the fire till all the equipment could be fully mobilized.

 “The first thing we do after we have surveyed the blow out scene is to make a careful list of all the equipment and materials we will need and to order those that are not on the site.” Red Adair explained to me how his team expected to control the blow out fire that was now raging on the drilling rig. “Then our team sits down to plan how we will proceed to control it. The first step in controlling oil well fires is to remove the metal debris around the well to make sure that there are no pockets of oil or gas around that could light spontaneously while we are on the rig and to expose the wellhead area. This used to dangerous and tedious work because in the olden days, we used hand axes and cutters. But now, we have specially designed cutters and by bringing in supply vessels with adequate lifting capacity we can clear the area around the well without too much danger. Debris clearing on burning wells is the most physically difficult firefighting operation and can take far longer than actual capping. Once debris is cleared and the well is exposed, final control operations can begin. The fire is generally not extinguished until the rig is cleared away. Because of the bad weather conditions, we actually end up designing a special vessel for this work.

“What we want to do,” Red explained, “is to make sure that the fire plume is straight and not waving about. Once that is achieved, and this takes the longest period of time, we are ready for the next phase of actually controlling the well. All this time we need to spray the platform with water to prevent the structure from deteriorating further. We measure the well bore and fabricate a sleeve with a cap, which can be placed on top of the well fire. As you can imagine, this is a hairy operation. Once the sleeve is in position, we then try to douse the fire by pumping in mud and water into the well. Sometimes, the amount of mud and water we need is quite a great deal. After that, sealing the sleeve with the cap and welding it in place is reasonably straightforward. I am giving you the basic approach,” he added, “but always remember that each well fire is quite different, with different pressures and temperatures and we have to be careful in designing our plan of action.”

We were to spend the next thirty days together as we discussed with his team various refinements to control the fire and then to cap the well. At dinner one night, Red mentioned that a movie had been made on his firefighting days, starring John Wayne, but which he had never seen. I managed to obtain this movie from Singapore and hired a cinema hall to show the “Hell Fighters” to all our ONGC staff and to the members of the press. Red Adair sat next to me throughout the movie. He squirmed at all the love scenes protesting loudly that “that did not really happen!”

Meanwhile the fire burned fiercely even as the firefighting teams sought to clear the wellhead area of various debris. The roaring sound of the fire was a constant reminder to all of us on the Sagar Pragati that we needed to get this under control as early as possible since each passing day, a large volume of oil and gas was being burnt away. Then on the thirtieth day, there was sudden silence. We came out on the rig deck to find that the fire had collapsed on itself under the constant deluge of water and now instead of a plume of fire, we had a large cloud of gas forming around the rig. There was a debate whether this cloud of gas represented a bigger danger both to the rig and to the surrounding installations and whether the fire should be relit as the Red Adair team suggested. But it was decided that the collapse of the fire in the well was a good omen and could hasten the capping of the well. So the mixture of oil and gas now spewing forth from the well was not relit, but we kept a close eye on the installations around the rig to ensure that none of them was in any danger from the spreading oil and gas.

As the monsoon weakened and the wave heights reduced, the firefighting teams were finally able to land on the rig and clear away all the debris from around the wellhead in order to start the capping operations. Red Adair and his team had planned well and the metal cap was soon on the wellhead. A fully forty-five days after the blow out, the well was finally under control and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

The Bombay High fire became the headline in all the national newspapers. It was only a few months before that Mrs. Gandhi had inaugurated the BHN process platform which had doubled the country’s oil production, and now it seemed to them that the fire could take all that away. For the next month, we not only fought the battle in the sea to contain the fire, but also sought to dowse the fears about the possible impacts of the fire. The press was invited to various presentations, which showed them that blowouts were a part of offshore oil operations internationally and that, indeed, ONGC’s record of safety was up to international standards. We made sure that all of ONGC’s experts were available to answer all their technical questions and gave them enough written material. In addition, we held a press conference every day to make sure that no wild rumors circulated and that any issues were dealt with straightaway. We took them to the site in helicopters to show them the scale of the fire and the steps that were being taken. Of course, the presence of Red Adair and his team and their reassurance that ONGC staff had done all that needed to be done and that their response was of international caliber, was the icing on the cake. As it was, the Bombay High fire story remained in the headlines for all of the forty five days it took to cap the well – and in no case was there any criticism of ONGC even though we had lost a $20 million rig in the fire. It was to become a case study on management and communication in a crisis.

It had been a tense and harrowing time. But now the danger was over. ONGC had passed one of its most critical tests and really come of age as an international oil operator. The blowout had emphasized the risks in oil exploration and the fact that ONGC had not lost any men in the fire and had managed to control the blow out in the short time of forty-five days had built up its credibility with the government and the public. Production from Bombay High had not suffered and the safety of the entire field had been ensured. A new rig to replace the burnt one had been ordered with the insurance money. The Bombay High fire also steeled the staff in the BOP and gave them confidence in their abilities to handle any crisis and forged a team spirit that was to stand us in good stead in the future.

                                                     The Bombay High complex