Darvaza - how to extinguish Hell. Part 1 (10 photos)
How a man-made gas crater appeared in Turkmenistan and what to do with it 
Oil and gas production, like any economic activity human, is associated with the risks of man-made disasters. Some of them end tragically, the consequences of them make themselves known know for decades.
Of course, the consequences of accidents in oil and gas production are unlikely comparable in scale to the Chernobyl disaster. It was global man-made disaster that affected the ecological state huge territory. But, you see, the burning of the fountain for three years with combustion daily of at least 12 million cubic meters of natural gas, as it was at the Urta-Bulak field - also a considerable man-made accident.
And today I will talk about another catastrophe, as a result of which appeared Darvaza - a gas volcano that has been burning for 52 years. It is located in the middle of the Karakum - the largest (along with the Kyzylkum) desert former USSR. Therefore, the impact on people is minimal. The only thing that there is good in this story.
1971 In the Turkmen USSR, 260 kilometers from Ashgabat start exploratory drilling at the site of the Central Karakum vault - geological uplift, promising for the content of hydrocarbons. The vault is composed of powerful deposits and terrigenous (obtained as a result of destruction of primary quartz and aluminosilicate bedrocks) and carbonate (chalk, dolomite) rocks. Carbonate rocks are prone to karsting - the process of gradual dissolution and leaching. IN as a result, numerous voids are formed in the form of cavities (cavities) and cracks. From time to time they fail and karst is formed. funnel 
Karst funnel, Kzyladyr karst field, Orenburg region 
While drilling, the unthinkable happened. Under the rig suddenly there was a failure and she literally went underground with everything equipment. During the work, a thin arch of an underground cavern was drilled and there was a collapse that swallowed the tower and equipment.
The worst thing is that there was a violation of the tightness of the wellbore and the so-called griffin appeared. 
A small griffin caused pollution around the well 
This refers to behind-the-casing fluid flow (contents reservoir - oil, gas, water). Powerful griffins are accompanied are accompanied by the formation of craters, the funnel diameter of which is sometimes reaches several tens and even hundreds of meters, because the surrounding the rock is ejected by the flow of liquid and gas.
It is not clear how, but the drillers managed to pull out most of equipment. Then the main question arose - what to do with it all. As a rule, in most cases, if drilling is accompanied by a griffin - The well is abandoned. But it is not so easy to do this, liquidation can last for many months or even years. The gas was moving with great force and accumulated around the well, poisoning everything around. Nearby was a village Darvaza, if the gas got there, then there would be a disaster with dozens of human casualties. Therefore, it was only accepted The correct, in my opinion, solution in this situation is to set fire to the gas. A then deal with the crash.
Set on fire with the expectation that the accumulation of gas is small and burn out in a few days or weeks. But the calculations turned out to be wrong. The gas did not burn out in a few days, or in a few months, or in several decades. And it has been burning for 52 years in a row. 
The flame spreads along the walls of the failure, dances in the cracks and depressions, and "torches" 10-15 meters high are blazing at the bottom. Although according to photos and videos do not say this, a maximum of three or four meters. Maybe maybe the underground pantry dries up and the flames become smaller? Or to me it seems that the scale is somewhat exaggerated by journalists.
Be that as it may, the question is how to remove this disgrace got up immediately. The USSR had considerable experience in solving disasters and not so scale. Yes, at least the same Urta-Bulak. And a year later, in 1972 put out the fire in the Mary region of all the same Turkmenistan (operation "Crater"). But then for some reason they did not extinguish.
Or they thought that the scale of the disaster was not so great. And what, burns itself and burns, you never know what burns in the world. In the same AzerbaijanV In the temples of the Zaroastians, the underground fire has been burning for centuries. The same Ateshgah 
Yanardag has been burning since prehistoric times, and Baba Gurgur in general not less than four thousand years, it is written about him in the Old Testament - and Nothing. Or quite reasonably decided that this is a very serious technical a problem that can be solved, but known methods do not guarantee fast result. The size of the crater is very large, under which there is an extensive underground gas collector. How much will he still burning is unknown. So, maybe not touch it, but leave it in rest.
Be that as it may, no one began to extinguish it. Unfortunately, there are no specific figures around gas losses. Journalists write who in what much, from several million to several billion dollars. Some in their wild fantasies reach the incredible numbers of 50 billion dollars. This is such a ridiculous figure from the ceiling that seriously it should not be taken. Even if we assume that during these 50 s a tail of years, one billion cubic meters of gas burned out (which causes I have big doubts, I think much less), then burns daily 52,687 thousand cubic meters of gas. A lot of? Yes, sure. If you take the current price of gas in Europe is $436 per thousand cubic meters, then losses would be $436 million. So many. But if take into account that this is the price of already prepared and pumped gas, current time, and not retrospective and raw gas, then the losses will be twice less. This is a lot, but it’s not a fact that emergency work would cost cheaper. 
The Turkmens dubbed this place Jähenneme Açylan Gapy - the gate Ada. Very successful, especially when you consider that Darvaza is translated as "door". It began to attract many tourists, primarily local. By the way, it can also be seen from space. 
Satellite images show that the fire is not so big. Although the scale is impressive - the size of the funnel is 60 meters in diameter, which is equal to half the area of a large football field (68x105). The maximum depth is 20 meters. For comparison, the height five-story building: 17 meters. 
In the post-Soviet period, the authorities of Turkmenistan more than once the idea was put forward to extinguish this volcano. But things are still there. Why is that happened and how it can be done, I will write in the second part.
