TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2019-01-31

Gas transmission and gathering incident in SHEPHERD, SAN JACINTO County, TX. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 1269 NATURAL GAS released, $87,867 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: 20190020.

Operator ID: 19160.

Reported incident date: 1/31/2019 14:45.

Location detail: 374 + 34.1

Cause detail: DESIGN-, CONSTRUCTION-, INSTALLATION-, OR FABRICATION-RELATED

Cause detail: AT 1:52PM ON JANUARY 31, 2019, A LOCAL PUMPER NOTIFIED TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE (TGP) OPERATIONS ABOUT A POTENTIAL LEAK SOUTH OF THE TRINITY RIVER IN SAN JACINTO COUNTY, TEXAS. TGP DISPATCHED OPERATIONS TO THE SITE TO INVESTIGATE. THEY ARRIVED AT 2:10PM AND AT 2:45PM CONFIRMED THAT THE 100-1 LINE WAS LEAKING. THE LINE WAS ISOLATED BY CLOSING MAINLINE VALVES MLV 27-1A AND MLV 27-1 AT 3:00PM. THE LINE WAS THEN BLOWN DOWN TO 0PSIG BY 8:00PM ON JANUARY 31, 2019. DUE TO WET GROUND CONDITIONS AND LOGISTICS, EXCAVATION OF THE LINE BEGAN ON FEBRUARY 2, 2019. THE LEAK WAS DETERMINED TO BE COMING FROM A CRACK IN THE PIPE GIRTH WELD. TO REPAIR THE CRACKED SECTION, THE LINE WAS CUT OUT AND REPLACED. REPAIRS WERE COMPLETED AND THE LINE WAS RETURNED TO SERVICE ON 1:23PM ON FEBRUARY 11, 2019. METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS DETERMINED THAT THE CAUSE OF THE CRACK WAS LACK OF FUSION IN THE PIPE GIRTH WELD DUE TO PIPE MISALIGNMENT DURING WELDING. A 48-HOUR PHONE UPDATE WAS PROVIDED TO THE NRC. THE 48-HOUR NRC REPORT NUMBER IS 1236609.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $115,578 reported total cost, $63,081.252 in 1984 dollars, $135,236.188 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.