TRANSCONTINENTAL GAS PIPE LINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2013-05-31

Gas transmission and gathering incident in NESHANIC STATION, SOMERSET County, NJ. Reported cause: INCORRECT OPERATION. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 0 released, $0 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: 20130052.

Operator ID: 19570.

Reported incident date: 5/31/2013 19:44.

Location detail: 1789.55

Cause detail: OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION

Cause detail: WILLIAMS CONSTRUCTION AND CONTRACTOR HENKELS AND MCCOY WERE PERFORMING CONSTRUCTION WORK AT COMPRESSOR STATION 505 IN NESHANIC STATION, NJ. THE INCIDENT OCCURRED WHILE WORKERS WERE INSTALLING A TEMPORARY WELD CAP ON A 30"OUT OF SERVICE SECTION OF PIPE AT 505 COMPRESSOR STATION YARD PIPING. DURING THE INSTALLATION PROCESS, A CONTRACT WELDER'S HELPER WAS PRE-HEATING THE PIPE WHEN EITHER GAS VAPORS OR LIQUID VAPORS IGNITED CAUSING THE WELD CAP TO DISLODGE FROM THE LINE UP CLAMP BUT NOT FROM THE HARNESS OF THE SIDE BOOM THAT WAS HOLDING IT. NO VISIBLE FIRE WAS WITNESSED NOR NEEDED TO BE EXTINGUISHED. 3 HENKELS AND MCCOY EMPLOYEES WERE TRANSPORTED TO LOCAL HOSPITALS WITH MINOR INJURIES AND WERE RELEASED LATER THE SAME EVENING. NO DAMAGED OCCURRED TO THE FACILITY AND THE PIPE THAT THE CAP WAS BEING INSTALLED ON IS BEING REMOVED AND SCRAPPED AT A LATER DATE AS PART OF THE PROJECT. PHMSA INSPECTED THE JOB SITE, THE GAS HANDLING PLAN, AND THE CONSTRUCTION INSTALLATION PROCEDURES THE FOLLOWING DAY AND GAVE WILLIAMS THE OK TO INSTALL THE TEMPORARY CAP AND CONTINUE WITH THE JOB.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: INCORRECT OPERATION — OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION.

PHMSA indexed costs: $0 reported total cost, $0 in 1984 dollars, $0 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.