SOUTHERN NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2013-11-21

Gas transmission and gathering incident in ARTESIA, LOWNDES County, MS. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 25938 NATURAL GAS released, $40,000 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: 20130117.

Operator ID: 18516.

Reported incident date: 11/21/2013 2:17.

Location detail: MP 11.09

Cause detail: ORIGINAL MANUFACTURING-RELATED (NOT GIRTH WELD OR OTHER WELDS FORMED IN THE FIELD)

Cause detail: AT 3:40AM SNG GAS CONTROL RECEIVED NOTIFICATION OF SMELL OF GAS (LATER DETERMINED TO BE CAUSED BY PREVIOUS ATMOS ODORANT MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES) AND A LOUD NOISE FROM THE LOWNDES COUNTY 911. LOWNDES COUNTY EMERGENCY RESPONDERS WERE ONSITE AND BELIEVED THE NOISE AND SMELL ORIGINATED FROM THE SNG PIPELINE. SNG PERSONNEL WERE DEPLOYED TO THE LOCATION, AN UNCULTIVATED AREA, WHERE THEY SECURED THE AREA AND ISOLATED THE PIPELINE. AS A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE, EMERGENCY RESPONDERS TEMPORARILY EVACUATED APPROXIMATELY 200 RESIDENTS TO THE LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL. AT 5:12AM SNG PERSONNEL NOTIFIED THE LOWNDES COUNTY 911 PERSONNEL THAT THE EVACUATED PEOPLE COULD RETURN HOME. EVACUATION WAS NOT NECESSARY SINCE THE ESCAPING GAS VENTED DIRECTLY TO THE ATMOSPHERE. THE 8-INCH WEST POINT LINE SEGMENT WILL REMAIN ISOLATED, WILL NOT BE RETURNED TO SERVICE AND WILL BE ABANDONED PENDING FERC APPROVAL.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — MANUFACTURING-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $987,135 reported total cost, $786,448.721 in 1984 dollars, $993,103.846 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.