Blazing Oil Well

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6519, 7 April 1931, Page 3

Blazing Oil Well

THREE-YEAR-OLD FIRE. , EXTINGUISHED BY POWDER. , Joszcf Sehiidzong, secretary to the I'ireinon’s Association, and his two collaborators have been awarded tho prize of £50,000 offered by the American Romanu Petroleum Oil Company for the extinguishing of the lire in the Moreno petrol well in Rumania. _ The means by which tho fire was extinguished was a powder which Mr. Sehiidzong and his friends invented last year, but which, owing to lack of means, they were unable to test to any satisfactory extent. After depositing a model of the spraying apparatus which disperses the powder in the Hungarian patent office, they sent their plans to the oil company, and ware surprise to receive the news last week that the prize was awaiting their firrival. The Moreno petrol well became ignited three years ago, and since then has consumed a tremendous quantity of petroleum. Tho column of fire, rose to a height of about 700 ft, or 800 ft., and the heat in its neighbourhood was so intense that it was impossible to get near enough to smother it. Attempts were made to bomb up the earth near it with aeroplanes, and also to drop bombs filled with extinguishing gasoi on the top of it. One method attempted by an American engineer was to shoot a boll made of bronze and silicium on to the mouth of the well. But though the bell extinguish the lire for 20 minutes, it was then thrown into tho air with a terrific explosion, and the engineer was fatally wounded by the fragments. Plans and inventions of various kinds have been submitted to the oil company, and seven engineers and 30 workmen have been killed during the attempts to extinguish the pillar of fire.