TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2024-02-03

Gas transmission and gathering incident in SARDIS, PANOLA County, MS. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 16022 NATURAL GAS released, $150,000 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: 20240029.

Operator ID: 19160.

Reported incident date: 2/3/2024 1:06.

Location detail: 64-1+8.31

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

Cause detail: OPERATOR RECEIVED A CALL AT 1:06AM ON 2/3/2024 FROM A RESIDENT NEAR SARDIS MS. RESIDENT STATED THAT THEY HEARD NOISE COMING FROM THE DIRECTION OF THE PIPELINE. PERSONNEL WAS DISPATCHED TO THE SITE. DISCOVERY OF THE INCIDENT OCCURRED AT 2:11AM. SEGMENT WAS ISOLATED AND BLOWN DOWN. UPON EXCAVATION, THREE WRINKLE BENDS WERE FOUND AT THE INCIDENT SITE. INVESTIGATION IS ONGOING; THE FAILED PIPE WAS SENT FOR METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS. PHMSA HAS ISSUED CPF2-2024-009-CAO. 7/3/2024: THE METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS WAS COMPLETED IN APRIL 2024, WITH THE FINAL REPORT BEING ISSUED MAY 29, 2024. THE METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS CONCLUDED THAT THE LEAK EVENT WAS CAUSED BY THE FORMATION OF A CIRCUMFERENTIAL CRACK RUNNING ALONG THE HIGHEST POINT OF A WRINKLE BEND. METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS CONSISTED OF VISUAL EXAMINATION, TESTING OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES, CHEMISTRY, AND CHARPY IMPACT TOUGHNESS. BASED ON THE TESTS, ALL MECHANICAL PROPERTIES WERE FOUND TO BE CONSISTENT WITH API STANDARDS AT THE TIME OF PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION. THE TWO KEY MECHANISMS THAT CAUSED THE INITIATION AND GROWTH OF THESE CRACKS ARE HIGHER DENSITY OF HYDROGEN TRAPS WITHIN THE ID MICROSTRUCTURE, AS SUBSTANTIATED BY THE PRESENCE OF ID SECONDARY CRACKING, IN ADDITION TO POSSIBLY LOW TEMPERATURES. 6/2/2025: THE ROOT CAUSE FAILURE ANALYSIS (RCFA) AND REMEDIAL WORK PLAN WAS COMPLETED AND SUBMITTED TO PHMSA ON 7/10/2024. ON 3/10/2025, THE CAO DOCUMENTATION REPORT (CDR) WAS COMPLETED AND SUBMITTED TO PHMSA. ON 3/28/2025 TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY (TGP) RECEIVED A CLOSURE LETTER FROM PHMSA OF THE CPF 2-2024-009-CAO.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $2,443,561 reported total cost, $1,037,301.679 in 1984 dollars, $2,498,307.058 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.