UGI PENN NATURAL GAS — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2018-12-23

Gas transmission and gathering incident in JESSUP, LACKAWANNA County, PA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 9200 NATURAL GAS released, $3,700 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: 20190006.

Operator ID: 15259.

Reported incident date: 12/23/2018 8:06.

Location detail: LEC METER

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: UGI UTILITIES, INC. (UGI) PROVIDES NATURAL GAS SERVICE TO A LARGE END USE CUSTOMER, THE LACKAWANNA ENERGY CENTER IN JESSUP, PA. UGI OPERATES MEASUREMENT AND REGULATION FACILITIES WHICH ARE LOCATED ON CUSTOMER'S PREMISES. WHILE THE CUSTOMER WAS PERFORMING TESTING OF ITS UTILIZATION EQUIPMENT, THE CUSTOMER'S EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN SYSTEM ACTIVATED, WHICH TRIGGERED THE ABRUPT CLOSURE OF A CUSTOMER OWNED VALVE LOCATED JUST DOWNSTREAM FROM THE UGI REGULATION FACILITIES. THE ABRUPT SHUTDOWN CAUSED A PRESSURE SPIKE AND THE UGI OVER-PRESSURE PROTECTION RELIEF VALVE OPENED TO RELIEVE EXCESS NATURAL GAS. WHEN PRESSURE WAS REDUCED, THE RELIEF DEVICE FAILED TO RE-SEAT AND CONTINUED TO VENT NATURAL GAS UNTIL THE REGULATOR STATION WAS ISOLATED THROUGH AN UPSTREAM STATION VALVE. ONCE ISOLATED, THE RELIEF WAS INSPECTED AND DAMAGE TO THE INTERNAL WEARING PARTS WAS REPAIRED. UGI HAS WORKED WITH THE CUSTOMER TO IMPROVE EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN PROTOCOLS TO MINIMIZE THE POTENTIAL OF OVER-PRESSURE PROTECTION ACTIVATION. ADDITIONALLY, UGI IS IMPLEMENTING FACILITY MODIFICATIONS TO IMPROVE OVER-PRESSURE PROTECTION SYSTEM PERFORMANCE. AFTER THE SITUATION WAS MADE SAFE AND IMMEDIATE HAZARDS WERE MITIGATED, UGI PROCEEDED TO CALCULATE THE AMOUNT OF GAS RELEASED. ONCE UGI DETERMINED THAT THE GAS RELEASED EXCEEDED 3,000 MCF, A CALL WAS MADE TO THE NRC.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $41,700 reported total cost, $36,339.849 in 1984 dollars, $47,982.083 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.