TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE CO (EL PASO) — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2011-06-07

Gas transmission and gathering incident. Reported cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 27947 NATURAL GAS released, $261,000 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: 20110226.

Operator ID: 19160.

Reported incident date: 6/7/2011 14:42.

Cause detail: ROUTINE OR NORMAL FISHING OR OTHER MARITIME ACTIVITY NOT ENGAGED IN EXCAVATION

Cause detail: BOEMRE (FORMERLY MMS), CONTACTED BY BLACK ELK ENERGY, NOTIFIED TGP OF A LEAK OFFSHORE IN VERMILLION BLOCK 116 THAT APPEARED TO BE IN THE VICINITY OF TGP FACILITIES. TGP MOBILIZED PERSONNEL AND BEGAN TO ISOLATE FACILITIES AROUND THE LEAK LOCATION. TGP'S 509A-1500 LINE WAS FOUND TO BE THE SOURCE OF THE LEAK. DIVERS DISCOVERED THAT A 1" BODY BLEED VALVE AND NIPPLE WAS BROKEN IN THE NIPPLE THREADS, POSSIBLY CAUSED BY OUTSIDE FORCE IMPACT SUCH AS A SHRIMP NET. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT BLACK ELK ENERGY CALLED THE NRC ABOUT THE LEAK AND WAS ASSIGNED NO. 978918, WHICH TGP CLAIMED UPON CONTACTING THE NRC. TGP WAS ASSIGNED A NEW NRC NUMBER OF 978958. THE LEAK WAS REPAIRED BY DRILLING OUT THE DAMAGED NIPPLE AND REPLACING WITH A 1-1/4" NIPPLED AND VALVE. THE REPAIRED FACILITY WAS PLACED BACK INTO SERVICE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE — FISHING OR MARITIME ACTIVITY.

PHMSA indexed costs: $753,958 reported total cost, $485,186.148 in 1984 dollars, $771,248.116 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.