SOUTHERN STAR CENTRAL GAS PIPELINE, INC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2019-03-25

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, HARVEY County, KS. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 9300 NATURAL GAS released, $1,200 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: 20190046.

Operator ID: 31711.

Reported incident date: 3/25/2019 3:13.

Location detail: GATE 42

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON 3/25/2019 AT 3:13 AM LOCAL TIME, SOUTHERN STAR CENTRAL GAS PIPELINE (SSCGP) GAS CONTROL RECEIVED AN ALARM THAT AN AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN (ESD) WAS UNDERWAY AT THE HESSTON COMPRESSOR STATION IN HARVEY COUNTY, KANSAS. OPERATIONS PERSONNEL WERE DISPATCHED TO THE STATION ARRIVING AT 3:46 AM. UPON ARRIVAL IT WAS NOTICED THAT GAS WAS STILL VENTING OUT OF THE STATION BLOW-OFF STACK. IT WAS DETERMINED THAT VALVE #42 FAILED TO CLOSE AUTOMATICALLY AND IT WAS CLOSED MANUALLY USING GAS POWER AT 3:56 AM AND THE GAS RELEASE STOPPED. SINCE THE GAS RELEASE WAS PART OF AN ESD IT WAS NOT IMMEDIATELY DETERMINED THAT THIS WAS A REPORTABLE EVENT. A SOLENOID VALVE IN THE BASEMENT FOR THE ESD SYSTEM WAS REPLACED AND THE STATION WAS BROUGHT BACK INTO OPERATION AT 7:15 AM. THE INITIAL GAS LOSS ESTIMATE WAS MADE AT 7:30 AM AND IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THIS WOULD BE A REPORTABLE EVENT AND THE NRC WAS CALLED AT 7:46 AM (NRC#1240963). AFTER INVESTIGATING THE ISOLATION VALVE, THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE OF THE VALVE TO CLOSE WAS BECAUSE SOME MATERIAL HAD BUILT UP IN THE OPERATOR OF THE VALVE. ALL COMPONENTS OF THE VALVE WERE CLEANED OUT. ALL OF THE ESD LINES WERE ISOLATED AND BLOWN OUT TO REMOVE ANY DEBRIS THAT MAY HAVE BEEN REMAINING IN THE LINE.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $22,355 reported total cost, $22,494.612 in 1984 dollars, $28,314.274 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.