PHMSA Report 20180118 - TRANSCONTINENTAL GAS PIPE LINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2018-10-18 | Regulus

Gas transmission and gathering incident in WASHINGTON, ST. LANDRY County, LA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 1.724 NATURAL GAS released, $119,667 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: 20180118.

Operator ID: 19570.

Reported incident date: 10/18/2018 17:35.

Location detail: VALVE 2

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON OCTOBER 18, 2018, AT STATION 54, THE SUSPECTED LEAK WAS DISCOVERED BY AN EMPLOYEE WALKING THROUGH THE STATION YARD AND SAW BUBBLES AROUND THE VALVE. UPON FURTHER INVESTIGATION, AT 5:35 PM THE LEAK WAS CONFIRMED TO BE GAS. THE STATION WAS ISOLATED AND BLOWN DOWN. HAND DIGGING WAS INITIATED AT 6:30PM. HYDROVAC TRUCK SHOWED UP AROUND 7P AND EXPOSED THE VALVES. ON 10/19/18, THE YARD WAS PURGED AND PACKED TO 300PSI AND THE LEAK POINTS WERE VERIFIED AT 6:00AM. VALVE WAS MONITORED AND RETURNED TO SERVICE AT 6PM. THE VALVE CONTINUED TO BE MONITORED AND THE MANUFACTURER WAS CONTACTED FOR REPAIR RECOMMENDATIONS. THE LEAK WAS ON A GROVE BALL VALVE WITH A FLANGED BODY. THE RECOMMENDED REPAIR METHOD WAS TO TORQUE THE FLANGED BODY. ON 10/30/18, THE VALVE BODY BOLTS WERE RE-TORQUED TO MANUFACTURERS TORQUE SPECIFICATIONS AND THE LEAK WAS STOPPED. RETURNED TO SERVICE AT 3PM. CONTINUED FROM G6 ITEM 6: BODY FLANGE NEEDED TO BE TORQUED. THE VALVE'S FLANGED BODY IS OVER 40 YEARS OLD AND IS BELIEVED TO HAVE LOST SOME TORQUE OVER THE YEARS DUE TO AGE ALONG WITH EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION WITH TEMPERATURE AND TIME. UPDATE 1/17/2019 - LEAK WAS REPORTED TO THE NRC ON 10/20/2018 WHEN THE COST OF THE REPAIR WAS DISCOVERED TO BE EXPECTED TO EXCEED $50K.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $254,053 reported total cost, $123,206.991 in 1984 dollars, $298,747.365 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.