SOUTHERN STAR CENTRAL GAS PIPELINE, INC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-08-12

Gas transmission and gathering incident in MERRIAM, JOHNSON County, KS. Reported cause: CORROSION FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 0 NATURAL GAS released, $972,011 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: 20140094.

Operator ID: 31711.

Reported incident date: 8/12/2014 2:59.

Location detail: 100/88+38

Cause detail: EXTERNAL CORROSION

Cause detail: ON 8/12/2014 AT 01:15 SSC OPERATIONS WERE DISPATCHED THROUGH A KANSAS ONE-CALL TICKET. AT 02:59 ON 8/12/2014 SSC OPERATOR CONTACTED GAS CONTROL NOTIFYING OF A POSSIBLE LEAK ON A SSC LINE. THE LEAK WAS AT THE I-35 AND 67TH STREET EXIT WHERE SSC AND KGS HAD LINES LOCATED. KGS COMPLETED THEIR EXCAVATION AT 16:34 ON 8/12/2014. KGS STATED THE GAS DETECTION WAS STRONGER AS THEY MOVED CLOSER TO THE SSC LINE . SSC OPERATIONS BEGAN EXCAVATION AFTER THIS DETERMINATION. SSC BEGAN BLOW-DOWN TO DETERMINE OWNERSHIP OF THE LEAK AT 19:37 ON 8/12/2014. SSC OPERATIONS COMPLETED THE BLOWDOWN AND CONFIRMED THE LEAK AT 09:03 ON 8/13/2014. SSC CONTINUED TO EXCAVATE THE AREA TO TRY AND DETERMINE THE LOCATION OF THE LEAK. AT 16:21 ON 8/13/2014 THE PIPE WAS UNCOVERED AND IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THE LEAK WAS BELIEVED TO BE UNDER THE I-35 ROADWAY. AT THIS TIME THE NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER WAS NOTIFIED BASED ON THE EXPECTED REPAIR COST TO EXCEED $50,000. DUE TO LOCATION AND LACK OF WORKSPACE THIS PIPE COULD NOT BE REMOVED TO INVESTIGATE THE LEAK. SSCGP DETERMINED THE PIPE WAS INSTALLED BY PULLING THROUGH AN HDD HOLE AND PIPE DID NOT CONTAIN ABRASION RESISTANT COATING. THE HOLE HAD BEEN BORED THROUGH SOLID ROCK. SSCGP BELIEVES EXTERNAL CORROSION CAUSED BY DAMAGE TO COATING DURING INSTALL, BY SCRAPING THE SIDES OF THE BORE HOLE, TO BE THE MOST LIKELY CAUSE OF THE LEAK. SSCGP IS RESEARCHING ANY SIMILARLY INSTALLED PIPE TO DETERMINE WHETHER OTHER LEAKS CAN OCCUR AND WHAT SSCGP CAN DO TO ELIMINATE THESE POSSIBLE THREATS. SSC HAS COMPLETED THE REPLACEMENT OF THE ROAD CROSSING BY PULLING A 16" PIPE INTO THE EXISTING 20" LINE. THE EXISTING LINE WILL BE USED AS A CASING. THE REPLACEMENT WAS COMPLETED ON 9/3/2014. THE LINE WAS PURGED, PACKED, AND BACK IN SERVICE ON 9/5/2014. ALL REPAIRS TO THE I-35 RAMP AND R/W WILL BE REPAIRED AND COMPLETED BY 9/10/2014.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: CORROSION — EXTERNAL.

PHMSA indexed costs: $997,781 reported total cost, $506,434.101 in 1984 dollars, $1,246,533.573 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.