SHELL PIPELINE CORP — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-10-31

Gas transmission and gathering incident. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 420.4 NATURAL GAS released, $600,000 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: 20140122.

Operator ID: 18273.

Reported incident date: 10/31/2014 20:49.

Cause detail: NON-THREADED CONNECTION FAILURE

Cause detail: OFFSHORE NATURAL GAS GATHERING PIPELINE INSULATING GASKET FAILURE ON THE RISER AT THE TERMINUS OF THE PIPELINE SEGMENT. INSULATING GASKET WAS LOCATED IN THE SPLASH ZONE AT PLUS 12 OF THE PLATFORM. GASKET REPLACED WITH STAINLESS STEEL RTJ GASKET 11/16. DETERMINED THE INSULATING GASKET HAD WORN DOWN DUE TO MULTIPLE BLASTING AND PAINTING SINCE ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION IN 1994. GASKET HAD ERODED REDUCING THE AREA OF THE INSULATING GASKET TO HOLD MAINLINE PRESSURE. BEGAN FILLING THE LINE SEGMENT 11/17. PERFORMED PRESSURE STAND UP ON SYSTEM 11/19. STARTED UP THE PIPELINE SYSTEM ON 11/21. NOTES 4/27/15 PIPELINE RELEASE LOCATION ON VR-397 PLATFORM WAS FLOWN OVER BY HELICOPTER ON 11/1/14 AT 10:35HRS TO VERIFY FLANGE GASKET FAILURE. NOT ALLOWED TO LAND ON PLATFORM DUE TO UNSAFE AIR MONITORING CONDITIONS. 2/21/15 - PLANNED SHUTDOWN TO RE-SURFACE FLANGE FACES AND INSTALL AN ANSI 900 VERY CRITICAL SERVICE FIRE (VCSF) PIKOTEK INSULATING GASKET KIT. LINE FILLED AND RETURNED TO OPERATION 4/9/15.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — NON-THREADED CONNECTION FAILURE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $661,500 reported total cost, $343,307.636 in 1984 dollars, $810,010.641 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.