NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD:
Oil and Natural Gas Corp said a fire that broke out at its Hazira gas processing plant in Gujarat on Thursday morning has been brought under control.
“There is no casualty or injury to any person,” ONGC said on its Twitter account.
Reports suggest that three consecutive blasts took place at two terminals of the Hazira-based ONGC plant in Surat at around 3 am.
Surat Collector and District Magistrate Dhaval Patel, a senior city official, told Reuters the fire was caused by a rupture in a pipeline at the gas terminal. ONGC’s plant is in Surat, a city in Gujarat.
“The area was cordoned off, depressurised and cooled as a part of firefighting measures,” Patel said.
“Other plants in the vicinity are operating as usual. I am told that the ONGC plant will also become partially operational in two to three hours,” he said.
Surat Municipal Commissioner Banchhanidhi Pani said the fire was in the 36-inch Uran-Mumbai gas pipeline.
A source familiar with the matter said the Hazira plant processes gas from the Bassein gas field, offshore Maharashtra state, south of Gujarat.
State owned United India Insurance(UII) is the lead primary insurer of ONGC,which has the largest amount of insurable assets among the public sector companies.Almost 95 per cent of ONGC cover gets reinsured in the London market.