SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2003-04-02

Gas transmission and gathering incident in PLAYA DEL REY, LOS ANGELES County, CA. Reported cause: 1. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $2,500,000 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: 20030042.

Operator ID: 18484.

Reported incident date: 4/2/2003.

Cause detail: CORROSION, EXTERNAL

Cause detail: ATMOSPHERIC CORROSION LEAK LOCATED ON INSTRUMENT GAS SUPPLY LINE RESULTED IN UNPLANNED EMERGENCY SHUT DOWN (ESD). DURING THE ESD PROCESS, ONE OF THE INVOLVED VALVES WAS NOT CLOSING FULLY DURING AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN, AND HAD TO BE CLOSED MANUALLY. COMPLETE CLOSURE AND EVACUATION OF LINES OCCURRED WITHIN 25 MINUTES. BLOWDOWN RELEASED NATURAL GAS AND LIQUIDS (CRUDE OIL AND WATER) INTO THE ATOMOSPHERE, CAUSING MIST DAMAGE TO NEIGHORING HOMES, LANDSCAPING AND VEHICLES. DAMAGE ESTIMATE EXCEEDED 50K AT 10:30AM. INVOLVED SECTION OF INSTRUMENT GAS SUPPLY LINE HAD BEEN REPLACED AND IS READILY VISIBLE FOR INSPECTION. AUTOMATIC VALVE ACTUATOR HAS BEEN REFURBISHED.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: CORROSION — EXTERNAL.

PHMSA indexed costs: $2,500,000 reported total cost, $1,594,492.857 in 1984 dollars, $3,901,731.669 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.