COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-01-03

Gas transmission and gathering incident in LANHAM, KANAWHA COUNTY County, WV. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 15321.18 NATURAL GAS released, $0 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: 20140013.

Operator ID: 2616.

Reported incident date: 1/3/2014 0:45.

Location detail: C9-150

Cause detail: COMPRESSOR OR COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON JANUARY 3, 2014 AT 12:45 EST, AN 8-IN BLOW-OFF (BO) VALVE ON PIPELINE SM-81 INADVERTENTLY ACTIVATED. LINE SM-81 IS LOCATED AND IS FED FROM LANHAM COMPRESSOR STATION YARD THROUGH A REGULATION RUN THAT CUTS THE PRESSURE TO APPROXIMATELY 400 PSIG. THIS BO VALVE REMAINED OPEN FOR APPROXIMATELY 70 MINUTES AND CONTINUALLY VENTED GAS AS THE LINE AND THE OPEN BO WERE FED BY THE REGULATORS. IT WAS IDENTIFIED THAT A VENT CAP ON A TRIGGER VALVE WAS HELD CLOSED RENDERING IT INOPERABLE DUE TO PAINT WHICH RESTRICTED ITS NORMAL FUNCTIONALITY. AN INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS MEMORANDUM WAS ISSUED COMPANY-WIDE TO INSPECT SIMILAR INSTALLATIONS (AFTER RECONDITIONING) AND TO AVOID A SIMILAR RE-OCCURRENCE DUE TO THE IDENTIFIED CAUSAL FACTOR. INITIAL INCIDENT REPOT WAS SUBMITTED ON FEBRUARY 02, 2014

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $65,218 reported total cost, $45,115.779 in 1984 dollars, $55,395.324 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.