Oil well fire

An oil well on fire in Iraq

Oil well fires are oil or gas wells that have caught on fire and burn. Oil well fires can be the result of human actions, such as accidents or arson, or natural events, such as lightning. They can exist on a small scale, such as an oil field spill catching fire, or on a huge scale, as in geyser-like jets of flames from ignited high pressure wells. A frequent cause of a well fire is a high-pressure blowout during drilling operations.

Extinguishing the fires

Kuwaiti firefighters fight to secure a burning oil well in the Iraqi Rumaila oilfields in 2003.[1]

Oil well fires are more difficult to extinguish than regular fires due to the enormous fuel supply for the fire. In fighting a fire at a wellhead, typically high explosives, such as dynamite, are used to create a shockwave that pushes the burning fuel and local atmospheric oxygen away from the well. (This is a similar principle to blowing out a candle.) The flame is removed and the fuel can continue to spill out without catching on fire.

After blowing out the fire, the wellhead must be capped to stop the flow of oil. During this time, the fuel and oxygen required to create another inferno are present in copious amounts. At this perilous stage, one small spark (perhaps from a steel or iron tool striking a stone) or other heat source might re-ignite the oil.

To prevent re-ignition, brass or bronze tools, which do not strike sparks, or paraffin wax-coated tools are used during the capping process. Meticulous care is used to avoid heat and sparks, or any other ignition source. Re-ignition at the wellhead may take the form of an extremely powerful explosion, possibly even worse than the original blowout.

Some of the technology used by the Red Adair to seal some of the Kuwait oil fires without re-igniting the flow of oil, originated in a patent by John R. Duncan (United States Patent 3,108,499 filed September 28, 1960, granted October 29,1963), a method and apparatus for severing section of fluid pipeline therefrom. The patent was granted a year after Red Adair's success in combating the Devil's Cigarette Lighter gas well fire.[2] The invention is concerned with removing a section of a fluid pipeline and inserting a valve or other component therein without destroying line pressure and without losing any significant amount of fluid passing through the pipeline.

With recent advances in technology as well as environmental concerns, many straight forward well fires today are capped while they burn.

There are several techniques used to put out oil well fires, which vary by resources available and the characteristics of the fire itself.

In essence the trade was started by Myron M. Kinley, who dominated the field in the early years. His lieutenant, Red Adair, went on to become the most famous of oil well firefighters.

Techniques include:[3]

Effects

Oil well fires can cause the loss of millions of barrels of crude oil per day. Combined with the ecological problems caused by the large amounts of smoke and unburnt petroleum falling back to earth, oil well fires such as those seen in Kuwait(1991) can cause enormous economic losses.

Smoke from burnt crude oil contains many chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, soot, benzopyrene, Poly aromatic hydrocarbons, and dioxins.[18][19][20] Exposure to oil well fires is commonly cited as a cause of the Gulf War Syndrome, however, studies have indicated that the firemen who capped the wells did not report any of the symptoms suffered by the soldiers.[21]

Famous fires

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Iraq Fires erupt in large Iraqi oil field in south Compiled from Times wires © St. Petersburg Times published March 21, 2003".
  2. "Hellfighters".
  3. John Wright Company Technical Library resource on blowout control
  4. "TAB C – Fighting the Oil Well Fires".
  5. 1 2 "Stilling The Fires of War, A Hungarian company lashes two MiG engines to a Soviet tank and proceeds to huff and puff and blow out the worst sort of raging oil-well fire. 2001. page 2, story by ZOLTAN SCRIVENER".
  6. Husain, T., Kuwaiti Oil Fires: Regional Environmental Perspectives, 1st ed. Oxford, UK:BPC Wheatons Ltd, 1995, p. 51.
  7. "Fighting an Oil Well Fire A Hungarian MIG jet engine that was used to extinguish the flames of some oil fires with high-pressure air, akin to blowing out a candle. These turbines were also equipped with three hose nozzles for simultaneously spraying the flames with seawater and chemicals. The procedure was very noisy. An athey wagon is in the background.".
  8. "Video".
  9. "The Fire Beater," Time
  10. "Oil-Well Fire Squeezed Out As Jaws Close Casing" Popular Mechanics, July 1935
  11. Putting Out an Oil Well Fire
  12. "VIDEO LeRoy-Ashmore fire fighting machine".
  13. "Wild Oil Well Tamed by Scientific Trick" Popular Mechanics, July 1934
  14. Nordyke, M. D. (2000-09-01). "Extinguishing Runaway Gas Well Fires". The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions (PDF). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. pp. 34–35. doi:10.2172/793554. Report no.: UCRL-ID-124410 Rev 2. U. S. Department of Energy contract no.: W-7405-Eng48.
  15. Broad, William J. (2010-06-02). "Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-06-18.
  16. [Video on YouTube Nuke the oil spill: Could nuclear bomb be answer for huge leaks as at US Gulf coast?] Check |url= value (help) (news video). Russia Today. Event occurs at 34 seconds. Retrieved 2010-05-05.
  17. "Soviet nuclear solution could be part of tactics to halt oil spill off US coast". Russia Today. 2010-05-05. Retrieved 2010-05-05.
  18. "IV. AIR POLLUTANTS FROM OIL FIRES AND OTHER SOURCES".
  19. Hobbs, Peter V.; Radke, Lawrence F. (May 15, 1992). "Airborne Studies of the Smoke from the Kuwait Oil Fires". Science 256 (5059): 987–91. Bibcode:1992Sci...256..987H. doi:10.1126/science.256.5059.987. PMID 17795001.
  20. Desk Study on the Environment in Iraq, United Nations Environment Program
  21. Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses: Final Report, December 1996

External links

Media related to Oil well fires at Wikimedia Commons

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