ANR PIPELINE CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2003-03-23

Gas transmission and gathering incident in MITCHELL, LAWRENCE County, IN. Reported cause: 17. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $174,000 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: 20030035.

Operator ID: 405.

Reported incident date: 3/23/2003.

Cause detail: BUTT WELD

Cause detail: THERE WAS A LEAK ON THE 2-501 36" MAINLINE BETWEEN MLV 53 & 54, FOLLOWING THE DISCOVERY OF AN ICE FORMATION ON THE SURFACE OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY. INITIAL DISCOVERY INDICATED A LEAK AND NO FIRE PRESENT. A PARTIAL THROUGH-WALL WELD CRACK, INTRODUCED IN THE IC AREA AT THE TIME OF THE WELD WAS MADE, WAS NOT DETECTED DURING RADIOGRAPHIC INSPECTION IN THE FIELD. A COMBINATION OF AXIAL STRESS AND APPLIED MOMENT, DUE TO MISALIGNMENT OF THE PIPE SECTIONS, OVERLOADED THE GIRTH WELD AND PROPAGATED THE PRE-EXISTING CRACK THROUGH WALL, CAUSING THE LEAK.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — BUTT WELD.

PHMSA indexed costs: $174,000 reported total cost, $117,487.179 in 1984 dollars, $144,256.41 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.