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Officials want to know what caused gas leak

The Douglas oil well that started spewing gas into the atmosphere last Tuesday has been plugged up with mud and is reportedly under control.

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission will sample soil and do rig inspections later this week to determine the cause of the accident. State Oil and Gas Supervisor, Tom Doll, says the state isn’t necessarily impacted monetarily by the gas loss because it's on private land, but does want to find out what happened at the site.

"This is a fee well and the amount of taxes and royalties on this particular well are going to be pretty minor. What we really are looking for is issues related to compliance and the total amount of gas that could’ve been vented to the atmosphere. That’s really where we’re really trying to get at this point."

Doll said there is no suspicion of incompliant actions, but that the incident has served as a cautionary reminder to nearby rigs to check their blowout preventer equipment, as well.

Irina Zhorov is a reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Wyoming. In between, she worked as a photographer and writer for Philadelphia-area and national publications. Her professional interests revolve around environmental and energy reporting and she's reported on mining issues from Wyoming, Mexico, and Bolivia. She's been supported by the Dick and Lynn Cheney Grant for International Study, the Eleanor K. Kambouris Grant, and the Social Justice Research Center Research Grant for her work on Bolivian mining and Uzbek alpinism. Her work has appeared on Voice of America, National Native News, and in Indian Country Today, among other publications.
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