CNPC Says Sichuan Qionglai Gas Well Fire‘Under Control’

China National Petroleum Corp., the nation’s largest oil company, said a fire at its Qionglai gas well in the southern province of Sichuan is “under control.”

An explosion caused the fire at 3:30 a.m. today and left one person missing and another injured, the Beijing-based state oil company said in a statement on its website today. The company is investigating the cause of the blast, it said.

Four calls during office hours to the mobile and office phone of Li Zhanbin, CNPC’s Beijing-based spokesman, weren’t answered.

The accident is at least the second this week for China’s biggest crude producers. Cnooc Ltd., the nation’s largest offshore explorer, said Dec. 19 that it shut two natural-gas fields in South China Sea after local maritime regulator notified it of a subsea pipeline leak.

Cnooc also reduced its 2011 output estimate by as much as 9.3 percent on Aug. 25 after the Chinese government ordered ConocoPhillips to stop production at the Penglai 19-3 field, which is co-owned by Cnooc and Conoco, in northern China’s Bohai Bay following two oil leaks.

(businessweek.com, Edited by Topco)