PHMSA Report 20020092
PHMSA Report 20020092
Gas transmission and gathering incident in VALLEY ACRES, KERN County, CA. Reported cause: 18. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $200,000 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: 20020092.
Operator ID: 18484.
Reported incident date: 1/16/2002.
Cause detail: FILLET WELD
Cause detail: FAILURE AT WELD SITE OF BAND ON LINE 85 CAUSED CIRCUMFERENTIAL TEAR OF LINE. FAILURE INITATED AT MULTIPLE HYDROGEN CRACKS AT THE TOE OF THE FILLET WELD AND AT NUMEROUS ARC BURNS. THE HYDROGEN CRACKING OCCURRED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE WELD WAS MADE AND WAS CONSISTENT WITH EXCESSIVE WELD COOLING RATES ON STEEL HAVING HIGH CARBON EQUIVALENT. ACTUAL YIELD STRENGTH OF PIPELINE AT INCIDENT IS 58,000 AS MEASURED. LOCATION LATITUDE - N 35 11 MIN 41.684 SEC LONGITUDE - W119 23 MIN 56.024 SEC SECTION F5 C IS UNKNOWN. CHECKED NO TO BYPASS FIELD
PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.
PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — FILLET WELD.
PHMSA indexed costs: $200,000 reported total cost, $163,918.435 in 1984 dollars, $273,452.555 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.
This material provides agency context. It does not replace binding regulatory text, and its legal effect depends on the underlying authority and facts.