Houston-based XTO Energy, the ExxonMobil subsidiary with more than a million acres of holdings in Oklahoma has problems with a natural gas well that exploded last week in West Virginia.
At last word, residents within a mile of the well near Powhatan Point were not allowed back into their homes following the Thursday explosion that badly damaged a crane and other equipment. No workers were injured in the blast.
Spokeswoman Karen Matusic said debris still had to be removed from the blast site and the company had hired Cudd Energy Services to cap the leaking well according to the Intelligencer Wheeling News Register.
She did not have an estimate regarding when the well might be capped. Air and water in the area still are being monitored for methane, but Matusic said the levels have not been found to be harmful to people or animals.
“Today we’re basically getting ready for our well control crew,” she said, noting the company Cudd Energy Services will conduct the work. Matusic described Cudd as the “premiere” well control company, adding that is why XTO chose to hire that firm.
Images and video from a drone are being used to give workers a better look at the site. Investigators with the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio EPA visited the site over the weekend and reviewed the drone footage.
Matusic said when the explosion occurred workers were in the middle of the completion phase, which means the site already had been drilled and fracked and was being prepared for production. Earlier this week, officials said the work was being done on a fourth well on the Schnegg pad, located along Cats Run Road.
After the well is capped, Matusic said work will begin to try and figure out what went wrong.
She noted the Powhatan site is the first well that XTO has had blow in Appalachia. She said she was not sure how long the process to get it capped might take, adding she had not been involved in similar situations in other parts of the country.
Matusic said XTO will continue to pay for displaced residents’ hotel bills, along with reimbursing them for items, such as toilet paper, that they have had to purchase while away from home.
Local officials, including those with the Belmont County Emergency Management Agency and Powhatan Volunteer Fire Department, could not be reached for comment on Saturday.