An oil well in North Dakota suffered a major blowout last week and was leaking between 50 – 70 barrels per day of fracking fluid, according to Reuters.
The well lost control after a blowout preventer failed and was leaking chemicals, water and sand, a company spokesman said.
The leak, close to the frozen Cherry Creek in McKenzie County, was contained and the fluids were being collected and trucked from the site. No liquids entered the water, Whiting said.
A blowout typically occurs when an unexpected burst of high pressure comes up the well, causing a loss of control.
“The well is not under control. They’re still diverting what’s flowing from the well into storage tanks and hauling that,” said Kris Roberts, a spokesman for the North Dakota Department of Health told Reuters.
A three-foot berm has been placed around the well, containing the liquids within the site, Lynn Helms, the head of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, said on a conference call.
Some “mist,” a combination of oil and water, did spray onto the frozen creek, but because of the ice and the snow it will be easier to clean up, said Helms.
“This a large (blowout) and also in terms of health and human risk it’s a big one. Pressure and control of a well is essentially priority number one for oil and gas companies,” Helms told Reuters.
He said there would be a “very serious postmortem” conducted with the company.
North Dakota is home to the giant Bakken shale oil formation and has experienced a boom in oil production especially in the counties of McKenzie, Williams, Dunn and Mountrail in the west of the state.
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