TRANSCONTINENTAL GAS PIPE LINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2018-07-30

Gas transmission and gathering incident in ST. JAMES, ST. JAMES County, LA. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 0 NATURAL GAS released, $6,776,933 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: 20180086.

Operator ID: 19570.

Reported incident date: 7/30/2018 15:15.

Location detail: 66.22

Cause detail: DESIGN-, CONSTRUCTION-, INSTALLATION-, OR FABRICATION-RELATED

Cause detail: ON MONDAY JULY 30, A LEAK WAS DISCOVERED AT THE 62-30 VALVE SITE, BY A CONTRACTOR WORKING FOR WILLIAMS AT 15:15. HE IMMEDIATELY NOTIFIED MANAGER OF OPERATIONS WHICH INTERN NOTIFIED OPERATIONS AT STATION 63 TO INVESTIGATE. AFTER INVESTIGATION, IT WAS DEEMED A NATURAL GAS LEAK ON THE 36 INCH HEADER SYSTEM UNDER GROUND. THE FLOW WAS REDIRECTED FROM A LINE TO B LINE AND HEADER SYSTEM WAS ISOLATED, LOTO AND BLOWN DOWN. AFTER HEADER WAS BLOWN DOWN, IT WAS CONFIRMED THAT LEAK NO LONGER PRESENT. INVESTIGATION IS ONGOING. THE REPAIR COSTS ARE UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME BUT EXPECT TO EXCEED $50K. OPERATIONS IS WORKING TO DETERMINE IF WE REPAIR IN THE NEAR FUTURE OR DELAY UNTIL PROJECTS SLATED IN 2019 AND 2021 TO BRING THIS SITE ABOVE GROUND. INITIAL NRC REPORT #1219961 ON 7/30/2018 AT 15:53. FOLLOWUP NRC REPORT #1220196 ON 8/1/2018 AT 14:22. A SUPPLEMENTAL/FINAL REPORT WILL BE SUBMITTED WHEN ADDITIONAL COST AND PIPE INFORMATION IS KNOWN AND/OR THE REPAIR IS COMPLETED. 1/17/2019: HEADER SYSTEM IS STILL ISOLATED UNDERGROUND. CAUSE STILL UNKNOWN UNTIL REPLACEMENT (TO BE COMPLETED IN 2019). ENTIRE HEADER SYSTEM REPLACEMENT WAS COMPLETED DECEMBER 2020. PINHOLE WAS FOUND ON ONE OF THE HEADER CAP WELDS. NO FORMAL INVESTIGATION.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $6,776,988 reported total cost, $3,237,318.375 in 1984 dollars, $7,972,455.402 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.