# AMOCO OIL CO — Hazardous liquid — incident on 2023-10-17 **Citation:** PHMSA Report 20230276 **Type / status:** incident / historical **Agency:** Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration **Effective:** 2023-10-17 **Published:** 2023-11-16 Hazardous liquid incident in UNION CITY, BRANCH County, MI. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 307 REFINED AND/OR PETROLEUM PRODUCT (NON-HVL) WHICH IS A LIQUID AT AMBIENT CONDITIONS released, $1,301,000 reported property damage. Operator-reported incident data submitted to PHMSA, generally within 30 days. Records may be supplemented or corrected and do not represent final agency causal findings. PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious. ## Document text Hazardous liquid incident in UNION CITY, BRANCH County, MI. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 307 REFINED AND/OR PETROLEUM PRODUCT (NON-HVL) WHICH IS A LIQUID AT AMBIENT CONDITIONS released, $1,301,000 reported property damage. Operator-reported incident data submitted to PHMSA, generally within 30 days. Records may be supplemented or corrected and do not represent final agency causal findings. Report number: 20230276. Operator ID: 395. Reported incident date: 10/17/2023 21:31. Location detail: 138.4 Cause detail: DESIGN-, CONSTRUCTION-, INSTALLATION-, OR FABRICATION-RELATED Cause detail: AT 9:24 P.M. ET, THE TULSA CONTROL CENTER RECEIVED A PRESSURE DROP AT GIRARD STATION FOLLOWED BY A LEAK ALARM AT 9:30 P.M. ET. THE LINE WAS SHUTDOWN AT 9:33 P.M. ET. FIELD CREWS WERE MOBILIZED AND THE LEAK WAS IDENTIFIED AT MP-138. THERE WERE NO INJURIES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS INCIDENT. AN OIL SPILL RESPONSE ORGANIZATION (OSRO) WAS MOBILIZED TO SUPPORT LEAK RESPONSE AND AN INCIDENT MANAGEMENT TEAM (IMT) WAS STOOD UP TO MANAGE THE RESPONSE. UPON EXCAVATION OF THE PIPELINE, THE LEAK SOURCE WAS DETERMINED TO BE AT THE SITE OF A REPAIR SLEEVE, WHICH WAS INSTALLED IN 1971 OVER MECHANICAL DAMAGE. THE PIPELINE SEGMENT, INCLUDING THE REPAIR SLEEVE, WAS CUT-OUT AND SENT TO A LABORATORY FOR METALLURGICAL EVALUATION. THE EVALUATION DETERMINED THAT THE CARRIER PIPE FAILED AS A RESULT OF A CRACK INITIATED FROM THE MECHANICAL DAMAGE THAT GREW BY A COMBINATION OF FATIGUE AND BRITTLE PROPAGATION UNTIL IT REACHED CRITICAL SIZE. THE FAILURE OF THE CARRIER PIPE PRESSURIZED THE REPAIR SLEEVE. THE EVALUATION FURTHER DETERMINED THAT THE REPAIR SLEEVE LONG SEAM WELD DESIGN AND UNDERFILL OF THE REPAIR SLEEVE LONG SEAM WELD WERE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DUCTILE FAILURE OF A REPAIR SLEEVE LONG SEAM WELD. PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious. PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED. PHMSA indexed costs: $4,728,500 reported total cost, $1,997,834.871 in 1984 dollars, $4,920,052.423 in current-year dollars. PHMSA trend flags, standardized causes, and indexed costs are analytical fields added to operator-reported incident data. They do not represent final agency causal findings. ## Provenance - Official: Yes - Source: - Source ID: `phmsa-pipeline-incidents` - SHA-256: `77a0f22b6da6aa618fca88a82e89e067fcf8ea262cd3ac2d0f22f137988ad894` - Retrieved: 2026-08-20T03:30:32.010Z - Exported: 2026-08-23T17:05:07.630Z - Document slug: `phmsa-incident-a1e8ef0a3bff77243dd2a108` ### Source metadata ```json { "recordKind": "pipeline_incident", "datasetType": "hazardous_liquid", "datasetLabel": "Hazardous liquid", "datasetPeriod": "January 2010 to present", "report": { "number": "20230276", "supplementalNumber": "39715", "type": "SUPPLEMENTAL FINAL", "receivedDate": "2023-11-16", "receivedDateRaw": "11/16/2023" }, "operator": { "id": "395", "name": "AMOCO OIL CO" }, "incident": { "date": "2023-10-17", "dateRaw": "10/17/2023 21:31" }, "location": { "city": "UNION CITY", "county": "BRANCH", "state": "MI", "postalCode": "49094", "latitude": 42.045905, "longitude": -85.024635, "type": "PIPELINE RIGHT-OF-WAY", "details": { "DESIGNATED_NAME": "138.4" }, "facilityName": "WHITING TO RIVER ROUGE" }, "cause": { "category": "MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD", "details": { "CAUSE_DETAILS": "DESIGN-, CONSTRUCTION-, INSTALLATION-, OR FABRICATION-RELATED", "NARRATIVE": "AT 9:24 P.M. ET, THE TULSA CONTROL CENTER RECEIVED A PRESSURE DROP AT GIRARD STATION FOLLOWED BY A LEAK ALARM AT 9:30 P.M. ET. THE LINE WAS SHUTDOWN AT 9:33 P.M. ET. FIELD CREWS WERE MOBILIZED AND THE LEAK WAS IDENTIFIED AT MP-138. THERE WERE NO INJURIES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS INCIDENT. AN OIL SPILL RESPONSE ORGANIZATION (OSRO) WAS MOBILIZED TO SUPPORT LEAK RESPONSE AND AN INCIDENT MANAGEMENT TEAM (IMT) WAS STOOD UP TO MANAGE THE RESPONSE. UPON EXCAVATION OF THE PIPELINE, THE LEAK SOURCE WAS DETERMINED TO BE AT THE SITE OF A REPAIR SLEEVE, WHICH WAS INSTALLED IN 1971 OVER MECHANICAL DAMAGE. THE PIPELINE SEGMENT, INCLUDING THE REPAIR SLEEVE, WAS CUT-OUT AND SENT TO A LABORATORY FOR METALLURGICAL EVALUATION. THE EVALUATION DETERMINED THAT THE CARRIER PIPE FAILED AS A RESULT OF A CRACK INITIATED FROM THE MECHANICAL DAMAGE THAT GREW BY A COMBINATION OF FATIGUE AND BRITTLE PROPAGATION UNTIL IT REACHED CRITICAL SIZE. THE FAILURE OF THE CARRIER PIPE PRESSURIZED THE REPAIR SLEEVE. THE EVALUATION FURTHER DETERMINED THAT THE REPAIR SLEEVE LONG SEAM WELD DESIGN AND UNDERFILL OF THE REPAIR SLEEVE LONG SEAM WELD WERE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DUCTILE FAILURE OF A REPAIR SLEEVE LONG SEAM WELD." } }, "consequences": { "fatalities": 0, "injuries": 0, "commodity": "REFINED AND/OR PETROLEUM PRODUCT (NON-HVL) WHICH IS A LIQUID AT AMBIENT CONDITIONS", "release": "307", "propertyDamage": 1301000, "estimatedOperatorCost": 15400, "estimatedEmergencyCost": 1825500, "estimatedEnvironmentalCost": 1541100, "ignition": "NO", "explosion": null, "evacuated": 0, "raw": { "FATAL": "0", "INJURE": "0", "UNINTENTIONAL_RELEASE_BBLS": "307", "EST_COST_PROP_DAMAGE": "1301000", "PRPTY": "4728500" } }, "provenance": { "viewId": "27nc-rsge", "viewUrl": "https://data.transportation.gov/api/views/27nc-rsge", "assetId": "1d547e17-2be1-4a32-9958-a1d5a946ade9", "archiveFilename": "Hazardous Liquid Accident Data - January 2010 to present.zip", "archiveSha256": "5aaa1a31834a0503acfdfc82172d9ff3483b480019cec1605ebb8e15d0040f0d", "memberPath": "accident_hazardous_liquid_jan2010_present.txt", "memberSha256": "2af519107224bbd22874e67c65f6aa526073a297b2b30104b711d071680488a4", "rowNumber": 638, "rowSha256": "36d1c52cc62eeb63c1573a40459e6fef38b358190572aeee39a36f2741d2e95d" }, "caveat": "Operator-reported incident data submitted to PHMSA, generally within 30 days. Records may be supplemented or corrected and do not represent final agency causal findings.", "operatorReported": true, "finalAgencyFinding": false, "flaggedAnalysis": { "dataAsOf": "2026-07-31", "flags": { "fireFirst": null, "significant": true, "serious": false }, "standardizedCause": { "sevenCategory": "MATERIAL/WELD/EQUIP FAILURE", "sevenSubcategory": "CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED", "eightCategory": "MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD", "eightSubcategory": "CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED" }, "costs": { "reported": 4728500, "in1984Dollars": 1997834.8708487088, "currentYearDollars": 4920052.422589445 }, "caveat": "PHMSA trend flags, standardized causes, and indexed costs are analytical fields added to operator-reported incident data. They do not represent final agency causal findings.", "provenance": { "sourceUrl": "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/data_statistics/pipeline/PHMSA_Pipeline_Safety_Flagged_Incidents.zip", "landingPageUrl": "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/data-and-statistics/pipeline/pipeline-incident-flagged-files", "catalogUrl": "https://data.transportation.gov/Pipelines-and-Hazmat/Pipeline-Incident-Flagged-Files/qdme-9bbm", "retrievalMode": "official_live", "archivedAt": null, "archiveSha256": "317e6a3e16d60b9b677efe391dc40258b5dd7ead83fb8bea74cb553cedfbbdec", "workbook": "hl2010toPresent.xlsx", "sheet": "hl2010toPresent", "rowNumber": 5214, "rowSha256": "d5d4a30b9d4dd08684c7bab25c33d49df36be4d623fbadc8aa5a6eb719cd9d0b" } }, "jurisdiction": "US", "operatorName": "AMOCO OIL CO" } ```