TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2017-08-14

Gas transmission and gathering incident in SUSSEX, SUSSEX County, NJ. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 2363 NATURAL GAS released, $165,000 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: 20170077.

Operator ID: 19160.

Reported incident date: 8/14/2017 14:03.

Location detail: 325-1+0.00

Cause detail: THREADED CONNECTION/COUPLING FAILURE

Cause detail: AUGUST 14, 2017: (2:03PM) TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE (TGP) STATION 325 BUILDING A ESD SYSTEM WAS ACCIDENTALLY TRIGGERED WHILE LOCAL OPERATIONS PERSONNEL WERE PERFORMING WORK ON THE STATION. (2:05PM) TGP GAS CONTROL RECEIVED NOTIFICATION FROM LOCAL OPERATIONS THAT AN ESD HAD BEEN ACCIDENTALLY TRIGGERED . LOCAL OPERATIONS ON-SITE VERIFIED THE STATION ESD, ONCE INITIATED, ISOLATED THE STATION FROM THE MAINLINE AND EVACUATED THE GAS FROM THE STATION PIPING. (2:20PM) DURING THE INITIAL ESD INVESTIGATION, VENT PIPING TO THE SILENCER WAS FOUND DISCONNECTED FROM THE SILENCER PIPING AND IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THERE HAD BEEN A VENT PIPING COMPONENT FAILURE. (3:05PM) EMERGENCY RESPONSE LINE (ERL) CALL HELD WITH TGP CORPORATE AND LOCAL RESPONSE PERSONNEL. (3:30PM) DETERMINED REPORTABLE INCIDENT - REPAIR COSTS WERE ESTIMATED TO BE NEAR OR ABOVE $50,000 THEREFORE MEETING THE PHMSA 49CFR 191 REPORTING CRITERIA. (3:34PM) THE NRC AND (3:42PM) PHMSA WERE NOTIFIED OF THE REPORTABLE INCIDENT. POST-INCIDENT: SUBSEQUENT INVESTIGATION DETERMINED THAT AFTER THE 2017 ANNUAL STATION ESD TESTING THE PIPING COMPONENTS FROM THE ESD DISCHARGE OPERATOR TO THE STATION SILENCER WERE RECONNECTED IMPROPERLY. THERE WERE ALIGNMENT CONNECTION ISSUES WITH THE "HUBER-YALE" HAMMER UNION CONNECTIONS. CORRECTIVE ACTIONS INCLUDE UPDATING PROCEDURES FOR TESTING THE CURRENT ESD SYSTEM, AND REMOVING THE 8" HAMMER FITTINGS AND PIPE ASSEMBLY AND REPLACING THEM WITH A NEW PIPE ASSEMBLY AND VALVE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — THREADED CONNECTION/COUPLING FAILURE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $171,882 reported total cost, $87,189.348 in 1984 dollars, $206,651.328 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.