SOUTHERN STAR CENTRAL GAS PIPELINE, INC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2015-05-02

Gas transmission and gathering incident in WELDA, ANDERSON County, KS. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 15650 NATURAL GAS released, $77,500 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: 20150072.

Operator ID: 31711.

Reported incident date: 5/2/2015 15:00.

Location detail: 100/0+00

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: SSC GAS CONTROL LOST COMMUNICATIONS WITH WELDA COMPRESSOR STATION AT 10:10 AM ON 5/2/2015. AT 10:25 AM SSC SUPPORT WAS NOTIFIED OF THE ISSUE AND BEGAN TROUBLESHOOTING. AFTER SUPPORT COULD NOT FIX THE ISSUE A FIELD COMMUNICATION TECHNICIAN WAS NOTIFIED AND THEY HEADED TOWARD THE STATION AT 12:30 PM. AFTER REACHING ELK STATION AT 14:00 PM AND DISCOVERING NO ISSUES WITH COMMUNICATION THE ERROR WITH THE LOCATION WAS DISCOVERED AND THE COMMUNICATION TECHNICIAN LEFT FOR WELDA STATION. SSC GAS CONTROL RECEIVED A CALL A 15:15 PM, FROM A FORMER EMPLOYEE, THAT THE WELDA STATION HAD ESD AND GAS HAD BEEN CONTINUOUSLY BLOWING SINCE 15:00 PM. SSC GAS CONTROL RECEIVED A SECOND CALL AT 15:20 FROM LOCAL EMERGENCY RESPONDERS NOTIFYING THEM OF THE BLOWING GAS. SSC OPERATIONS WERE DISPATCHED AT 15:23 PM. THE SSC COMMUNICATIONS TECHNICIAN ARRIVED, AT WELDA STATION, AT 15:51 PM AND WAS NOTIFIED TO REMAIN OUTSIDE THE FACILITY SINCE THEY WERE NOT QUALIFIED TO SHUT-IN THE BLOWING GAS. SSC OPERATIONS ARRIVED ONSITE AT 16:13 PM AND HAD THE STATION SHUT IN AT 16:43 PM. IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THE STATION HAD LOST COMMUNICATIONS DUE TO A POWER SURGE WHICH TRIP BREAKERS AT THE STATION INCLUDING THE BATTERY CHARGER. ONCE BATTERY BACK-UP DEPLETED ITS POWER THE STATION ESD. DURING THE ESD TWO GATES REMAINED OPEN BECAUSE OF DEBRIS IN THE ESD SIGNAL LINE THAT MADE ITS WAY TO THE POPPET BOCK, CAUSING EXCESSIVE BLOWING GAS FROM THE MAINLINE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $116,685 reported total cost, $74,574.344 in 1984 dollars, $140,504.913 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.