NATURAL GAS PIPELINE CO OF AMERICA (KMI) — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2019-03-05

Gas transmission and gathering incident in CAMERON, CAMERON County, LA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 66216.8 NATURAL GAS released, $15,750 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: 20190041.

Operator ID: 13120.

Reported incident date: 3/5/2019 17:13.

Location detail: R-14-W,T-14-S

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: AT 17:12 CST, THE STATION EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN (ESD) SYSTEM AT THE NATURAL GAS PIPELINE COMPANY OF AMERICA, LLC (NGPL) STATION 342 IN JOHNSON BAYOU, LA (CAMERON PARISH) WAS ACTIVATED. NGPL GAS CONTROL IN HOUSTON, TX RECEIVED AN ABNORMAL SHUTDOWN ALARM AROUND 17:13. THE CONTROLLER DISPATCHED A TECHNICIAN TO THE SITE. PERSONNEL ARRIVED AT THE STATION AT 17:55. UPON ARRIVAL, THE TECHNICIAN ASSESSED THE SITUATION RECOGNIZING THAT THE DISCHARGE BLOWDOWN VALVE WAS VENTING GAS; THEREFORE, THE DISCHARGE SIDE GATE VALVE (1342-5) DID NOT CLOSE PROPERLY WHEN THE ESD WAS ACTIVATED. THE TECHNICIAN CLOSED THE VALVE STOPPING THE RELEASE OF GAS AT 17:58. NOTE THAT LOCAL EMERGENCY RESPONDERS HAD TEMPORARILY BLOCKED THE ACCESS ROAD TO THE STATION (DEEP BAYOU ROAD) UNTIL THE GAS RELEASE STOPPED. STATION PERSONNEL BEGAN INVESTIGATING THE CAUSE OF THE ESD AND IT WAS INITIALLY DETERMINED THAT THE PNEUMATIC FIRE PROTECTION PANEL TRIPPED INITIATING THE ESD. RETURN TO SERVICE WAS DELAYED DUE TO DETERMINING THE CAUSE OF THE ESD AS WELL AS OBTAINING REPLACEMENT COMPONENTS IN THE FIRE PROTECTION PANEL. ADDITIONALLY, LINE BREAK/PIPELINE RUPTURE DETECTION DEVICES HAD CLOSED THE UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM MAINLINE BLOCK VALVES ADDING TO THE DELAY. THE DELAY IMPACTED ONE NGPL CUSTOMER, THE CHENIERE LNG FACILITY. THE INVESTIGATION DETERMINED THAT THE ESD WAS CAUSED BY COMPONENT FAILURE OF THE PNEUMATIC ESD RESET PALM BUTTON IN THE FIRE PROTECTION CONTROL PANEL. ADDITIONALLY, THE ESD DID NOT FUNCTION AS DESIGNED DUE TO THE DISCHARGE SIDE GATE VALVE NOT CLOSING FULLY DUE TO THE PNEUMATIC INTERLOCKING DEVICES NOT FUNCTIONING PROPERLY. NOTE: 48-HOUR NRC UPDATE #1239500

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $235,568 reported total cost, $225,881.642 in 1984 dollars, $296,026.371 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.