Oil India Limited flew in equipment weighing about 60 tonnes from Canada on Wednesday night to kill the Baghjan gas well that suffered a blowout on May 27.

On September 13, experts from Alert had successfully managed to douse the well fire by diverting the flow of natural gas to nearby flare pits, a prelude to killing it sometime next week.

A senior Oil India official said it will take another 14 days for the equipment from Piston Well Services to reach Baghjan because the trailers can travel only at night, and another seven to 10 days for the stubbing operations to be completed.

Four experts from Piston had arrived on October 14, of whom two have gone to Calcutta to bring the equipment to Baghjan in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district, around 530km from Guwahati. Piston has a tie-up with another Canadian firm Alert, whose experts are working to kill the well after efforts to cap it failed.

The Oil India official said that stubbing is a process by which pipes are inserted into the bottom of the well through which chemical mud will be injected to kill it. “Once killed, the well will be abandoned. Killing is a process to control a well which is blowing out,” he said.

But, there is no guarantee all stubbing operations will be successful, he said. After three unsuccessful attempts, the experts resorted to diverting the gas flow to the flare pits.

The blowout and the subsequent well head fire on June 9 has affected around 8,000 residents and the local ecology. Locals have been staging protests in Baghjan, Tinsukia and more recently in Guwahati seeking early release of compensation and killing/capping of the well so that they can slowly return to normalcy.

On September 29, Oil India chairman and managing director Sushil Chandra Mishra had spoken about the stubbing operations and that the company will be able “resolve” the Baghjan issue by November.

“We hope they are able to stub the well because we are the ones suffering,” a Baghjan resident said.