After narrowly losing the race to Shillong over IIM, People of Assam can now take pride to the fact that a move is on to establish the country’s first National Oil Museum in Guwahati. The oil museum will be named after the late K D Malaviya, India’s first petroleum minister. The museum will be a collaborative effort among all the public sector units of the oil industry, under the aegis of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The project is scheduled for completion in 2008.

Apart from housing the artifacts from the past, there will also be facilities for interactive displays, computerised kiosks, and other modern information media. “The viewing experience would enable the visitor to appreciate the richness of the oil industry’s heritage,” said Tridib Duvarah, administrative officer (coordination and PR), Oil India Limited.

The museum would have an attractive glass pyramid roof with a base of 37m x 37m and a height of 22m. It will add to the distinctive appearance of the structure.

The museum will come up on a 10-bigha plot of land provided by the Government of Assam, near the NH 37, opposite Guest House No 1. M/s Pheroze Kudianvala Consultants Engineers Pvt Ltd has designed the museum building.

The idea of developing an oil museum was first mooted in 1984, during the silver jubilee celebration of Oil India Ltd. But the formal approach towards its realisation began only in 1995 with support from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. OIL was subsequently by given the responsibility to coordinate the project.

Meanwhile artificial pond created to douse OIL well fire at Dikom.

The 90,000 cubic litre capacity tank was being filled by diverting water of river Sessa. The water from the pond would be mixed with chemicals and it would be used as a “jet cutter”, OIL Strategic Planning Senior Advisor Nripen Bharali said.

Explaining the plan, he said the jet of water under high pressure would take the fire to one side and cut off its oxygen supply to extinguish it. Bharali said the special high power pumps to draw water from the tank were being brought in from Rajamundri in Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile, the OIL personnel and two special teams of ONGC from Bombay High along with American fire experts from Boots and Coots in Texas worked in an “unprecendented operation” for sixth day today to stop the inferno from spreading, he said.

“The operation is unprecendented and warlike as we have to seek equipments from all over the country. With the experts, including the Americans, working 24-hours we hope to get control over the flames within possibly a week’s time,” Group General Manager and Head of OIL’s operation in the state J K Talukdar said. Talukdar, after a visit to the site, said there was uncontrolled flow of oil and with the blaze raging in angular direction the job has got difficult. The experts were gradually trying to bring the blaze to a vertical direction after which water blanketing could be undertaken sucessfully, he added. The OIL was providing back-up support and equipment to experts.

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