COLUMBIA GULF TRANSMISSION, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-11-19

Gas transmission and gathering incident in LIBERTY, CASEY County, KY. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 19637 NATURAL GAS released, $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: 20140139.

Operator ID: 2620.

Reported incident date: 11/19/2014 1:05.

Location detail: SHAFER ACT

Cause detail: COMPRESSOR OR COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON NOVEMBER 19TH, 2014, A COLUMBIA GULF TRANSMISSION, LLC (COLUMBIA) COMPRESSOR STATION (CS) WAS SUBJECT TO AN UNINTENDED LOSS OF NATURAL GAS (MATERIAL) THROUGH AN 8-IN BLOW-OFF VALVE. THIS EVENT OCCURRED AT THE COLUMBIA CLEMENTSVILLE CS LOCATED IN CASEY COUNTY, NEAR THE TOWN OF LIBERTY, KY. THE EVENT THAT LED TO AN UNINTENDED RELEASE OF MATERIAL EXCEEDING 3,000 MCF WAS REPORTED TO THE NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER ACCORDINGLY. ONCE THE ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS INVESTIGATION HAD BEEN PERFORMED, IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THE BLOW-OFF VALVE FAILED TO CLOSE WHEN COMMANDED DUE TO AN UNDETECTED OPEN CIRCUIT IN THE SOLENOID COIL. ELEVATED RESISTIVITY WAS MEASURED ON THE SOLENOID COIL WIRING AND MOISTURE WAS DETECTED IN ITS ENCLOSURE. MOISTURE WAS REMOVED, RETESTED WHERE IT DISPLAYED NORMAL RESISTIVITY LEVELS. COVER PLATE WAS INSTALLED WITH PROPER SEALANT TO AVOID MOISTURE FROM ACCUMULATING INSIDE THE SOLENOID COIL WIRING ENCLOSURE. THEREAFTER, A FULL SYSTEM CHECK WAS PERFORMED BEFORE RETURNING THE CS BACK INTO SERVICE.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — PUMP/COMPRESSOR OR PUMP/COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $72,371 reported total cost, $49,971.826 in 1984 dollars, $61,671.103 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.