COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION CORP — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2008-11-05

Gas transmission and gathering incident in PIKE County, PA. Reported cause: 1. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $1,849,692 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: 20080143.

Operator ID: 2616.

Reported incident date: 11/5/2008.

Cause detail: CORROSION, EXTERNAL

Cause detail: PIPELINE 1278 WAS UNDERGOING A RESTORATION OF THE PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED MAOP. THE PRESSURE RESTORATION PLAN WAS COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY WHERE TEH PIPELINE WAS BEING PATROLLED UPON EACH INCREMENTAL INCREASE OF 50 PSIG FROM 800 PSIG TO 1000 PSIG. UPON CONDUCITNG NECESSARY SAFETY CHECKS, NO LEAKS WERE DETECTED BY THE LEAK DETECTION INSTRUMENTS. AFTER SEVERAL HOURS FROM THE COMPLETION TO THE PRESSURE RESTORATION PROCEDURE, THE PIPELINE EXPERIENCED A RUPTURE DUE TO AN UNIDENTIFIED REASON. A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION IS TAKING PLACE TO IDENTIFY THE ROOT CAUSE TO THIS INCIDENT. ======================== THE FAILURE WAS CAUSED BY NEAR-NEUTRAL-PH STRESS CORROSION CRACKING IDENTIFIED BY AN INVESTIGATIVE CONSULTANT. A TOTAL OF 510 FEET REPLACED THE RUPTURED SECTION.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $1,849,692 reported total cost, $1,010,392.824 in 1984 dollars, $2,401,147.996 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.