TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-07-28

Gas transmission and gathering incident in MIDDLETON, HARDEMAN County, TN. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 16606 NATURAL GAS released, $400 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: 20140088.

Operator ID: 19160.

Reported incident date: 7/28/2014 11:12.

Cause detail: OTHER EQUIPMENT FAILURE

Cause detail: A LOOSE WIRE IN THE "B" COMPRESSOR BUILDING BPS (BUILDING PROTECTION SYSTEM) CABINET CAUSED THE STATION'S EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN SYSTEM TO ACTIVATE. THE ASSOCIATED UNINTENTIONAL GAS FROM THE BLOWDOWN WAS 16,606 MCF (GREATER THAN THE 3,000 MCF REPORTING THRESHOLD). DURING THE ESD TWO AUTOMATIC GAS-OPERATED BLOCK VALVE OPERATORS FAILED TO CLOSE THE BLOCK VALVES DUE TO A FAILED BEARING IN EACH OPERATOR. THIS RESULTED IN A LARGER AMOUNT OF GAS TO RELEASE, IN A CONTROLLED MANNER, THROUGH THE BLOWDOWNS. OPERATING PERSONNEL WERE ON SITE AND RESPONDED IMMEDIATELY. NOTE THAT DUE TO LOW DEMAND AT THE TIME OF THE EVENT THE COMPRESSOR STATION WAS NOT IN OPERATION. FOLLOWING REPAIRS, THE ESD SYSTEM WAS PLACED BACK IN SERVICE. ADDITIONALLY, EACH ESD VALVE HAS BEEN INSPECTED, TESTED AND FUNCTIONALLY VERIFIED. ALSO NOTE THAT PART D, QUESTION 3 ASKS FOR THE PIR AT THE LOCATION OF THE INCIDENT. THE PIR HAS BEEN CALCULATED BASED ON THE LARGEST DIAMETER PIPELINE WITHIN THE COMPRESSOR STATION.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — OTHER EQUIPMENT FAILURE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $64,167 reported total cost, $44,314.99 in 1984 dollars, $54,662.709 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.