ANR PIPELINE CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2012-02-07

Gas transmission and gathering incident in LAGRANGE, STEUBEN County, IN. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 500 NATURAL GAS released, $753,000 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: 20120025.

Operator ID: 405.

Reported incident date: 2/7/2012 14:45.

Location detail: 44.9

Cause detail: ORIGINAL MANUFACTURING-RELATED (NOT GIRTH WELD OR OTHER WELDS FORMED IN THE FIELD)

Cause detail: ON CALL TCPL EMPLOYEE RECEIVED A CALL FROM GAS CONTROL ADVISING A LANDOWNER HAD CALLED IN REPORTING A BUBBLING NOISE IN THE AREA OF THE PIPELINE. TCPL EMPLOYEES INVESTIGATED AND FOUND A SLOW BUBBLE FORMATION EVERY 3 TO 4 SECONDS WAS OBSERVED CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE 22 INCH 504 TIELINE LOCATED IN THE LAGRANGE SECTION NEAR ORLAND, INDIANA, EAST OF STATE ROUTE 327 NEAR MILEPOST 45. COMPANY INVESTIGATED FURTHER AND USED INSTRUMENTS TO DETECT A GAS LEAK. FOLLOWING ISOLATION OF THE SEGMENT, THE AREA WAS EXCAVATED AND THE PIPE SEGMENT CONTAINING THE LEAK WAS REMOVED FROM THE PIPELINE. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE COMPANY'S PIPE INTEGRITY GROUP HAS EXAMINED THE FAILED SEGMENT OF PIPE THROUGH METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS AND DISCOVERED THAT THE FAILURE WAS DUE TO A LACK OF FUSION IN THE LONGITUDINAL WELD.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — MANUFACTURING-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $763,000 reported total cost, $403,414.076 in 1984 dollars, $988,328.65 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.