GRAMA RIDGE STORAGE AND TRANSPORTATION, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2017-04-07

Gas transmission and gathering incident in EUNICE, LEA COUNTY County, NM. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 1284 NATURAL GAS released, $1,821,766 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: 20170033.

Operator ID: 32420.

Reported incident date: 4/7/2017 11:08.

Location detail: FACILITY

Cause detail: COMPRESSOR OR COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON APRIL 7, 2017 AT 11:08 PM MT AT THE ENSTOR GRAMA RIDGE GAS STORAGE FACILITY, THE OPERATOR ON-CALL RECEIVED AN ALARM INDICATING THAT COMPRESSOR UNIT C203 HAD SHUT DOWN. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, MULTIPLE OTHER ALARMS WERE RECEIVED. THE OPERATOR ARRIVED AT THE FACILITY AT 12:20 AM MT, AND OBSERVED A SMALL FIRE INSIDE THE COMPRESSOR BUILDING THAT EXTINGUISHED ITSELF SHORTLY THEREAFTER. THE OPERATOR NOTED THAT THE FACILITY HAD ACTIVATED THE EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN SYSTEM PROPERLY AND AS DESIGNED. COMPANY MANAGEMENT AND SAFETY PERSONNEL WERE IMMEDIATELY NOTIFIED AND FACILITY PERSONNEL TOOK THE NECESSARY STEPS TO ENSURE CONDITIONS WERE SAFE TO BEGIN INVESTIGATING THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE. THE NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER AND THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO PRC WERE NOTIFIED AS SOON AS OPERATIONS PERSONNEL AND ENSTOR MANAGEMENT DETERMINED THE CONDITIONS AT THE FACILITY ADEQUATELY STABLE, SAFE AND MET THE DEFINITION OF THE INCIDENT AS DEFINED BY 49 CFR 191.3 AND STATE ADOPTED AMENDMENTS TO THE FEDERAL REGULATIONS. INDUSTRY EXPERTS WERE ENGAGED TO REVIEW AND DOCUMENT ALL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AND SYSTEM DATA PERTAINING TO THE INCIDENT TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE SAFE OPERATIONS AND REPAIRS. INDUSTRY EXPERTS WERE ENGAGED TO REVIEW AND DOCUMENT ALL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AND SYSTEM DATA PERTAINING TO THE INCIDENT TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE SAFE OPERATIONS AND REPAIRS.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — PUMP/COMPRESSOR OR PUMP/COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $1,822,466 reported total cost, $891,174.317 in 1984 dollars, $2,193,867.316 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.