Russian gunners were able to be brought under control and extinguished a wellhead fire at an oil field in Siberia, according to the Lenta.ru.
The oil well in Siberia’s Irkutsk region, operated by a subsidiary of the Irkutsk Oil Company, caught fire on May 30. The regional government convened an emergency meeting on Friday to work out how to put it out.
“We decided to bring in the military’s artillery forces who have to shoot at the wellhead for the successful and operational closure of the well,” Andrei Bogdanov, head of production security for the Irkutsk Oil Company, told the meeting.
The military with MT-12 anti-tank gun was able to cut the fountain reinforcement of the well with “jewelry precision” from the closest distance from the source of ignition – 180 meters. It is also reported that after the work of the gunners it became possible to install blowout control equipment for oil well sealing.
The fire at the well was finally extinguished on June 7, representatives of the Pacific Terminal company said. In addition, they stated that without the intervention of gunners and their anti-tank gun, it would have been possible.
The MT-12, or also know as “Rapira”, is a Russian smoothbore 100-mm towed anti-tank gun, which served as the primary towed anti-tank artillery in the Soviet armies from the early 1960s. This gun is a type of artillery weapon designed to destroy the enemy’s armored vehicles.