SOUTHERN STAR CENTRAL GAS PIPELINE, INC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2003-07-05

Gas transmission and gathering incident in ST FRANCIS, CHEYENNE County, KS. Reported cause: 20. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, $141,912 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: 20030071.

Operator ID: 31711.

Reported incident date: 7/5/2003.

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON SATURDAY, JULY 5, 2003 AT 3:08 PM CST, ST. FRANCIS COMPRESSOR STATION ON THE RAWLINS-HESSTON EXPERIENCED AN ESD "EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN", WHICH SHUT THE STATION DOWN. DURING THE ESD, THAT STATION SUCTION VALVE DID NOT CLOSE WHICH ULTIMATELY VENTED GAS TO THE ATMOSPHERE FOR APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 45 MINUTES UNTIL FIELD OPERATIONS PERSONNEL ARRIVED AT THE SCENE AND RESPONDED TO THE SITUATION. THE STATION SUCTION VALVE WAS CLOSED AND THE EVENT WAS UNDER CONTROL AT 4:53 PM CST.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $141,912 reported total cost, $95,820.923 in 1984 dollars, $117,653.538 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.