As many as 1,500 residents in two to three neighborhoods were evacuated Thursday after drillers hit a pocket of natural gas that caused a well to blow out behind a fire department substation in Carlsbad, NM, city Fire Chief Michael Reynolds said.

Houston, TX-based Cudd Pressure Control was on the scene Friday to cap the well, which began spewing gas at 8:30 a.m. (Mountain Time) Thursday, Reynolds told NGI. The well was flowing gas at a rate of more than 2 MMcf/minute. The owner of the drilling rig was reported to be Chi Operating Inc., also of Houston.

Reynolds said that no one was injured as a result of the well blowout, which occurred about 600 to 800 feet from one of the six fire substations in Carlsbad. New Mexico permits drilling as close as 500 feet from a structure.

He did not know when people would be able to return to their homes and businesses, saying it would all depend on the mitigation work at the blowout site and the weather. Carlsbad is tucked away in the southeastern corner of the state near the Texas border.

The blowout comes about 3 1/2 years after a major explosion on the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline system in Carlsbad, which killed 12 people at a pipeline crossing near the Pecos River.

While Carlsbad has been the site of a “couple of big incidents” involving natural gas in the past few years, Reynolds contends the exploration and production industry has had a “fairly uneventful” record over the many decades that it has been operating in New Mexico.

Natural gas is considered a “mainstay of the economy” in Carlsbad and the state, he said.

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