EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2012-03-29

Gas transmission and gathering incident in YAH-TA-HEY, MCKINLEY County, NM. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 266 NATURAL GAS released, $83,600 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: 20120042.

Operator ID: 4280.

Reported incident date: 3/29/2012 8:00.

Location detail: 83+1255

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: EL PASO NATURAL GAS (EPNG) EMPLOYEES WERE PERFORMING INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT REMEDIATION WORK ON LINE 1204. THEY NOTICED A SMALL LEAK FROM A 30-INCH VALVE IN CROSSOVER PIPING WHICH WAS USED TO ISOLATE THE PIPELINE SEGMENT. THE LEAK WAS DUE TO STEM FAILURE IN THE ABOVE GROUND STEM RISER OF THE 30-INCH VALVE AND COULD ONLY BE REPAIRED BY REPLACING THE VALVE. THIS WAS DONE AND THE REMEDIATION WORK CONTINUED.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $84,132 reported total cost, $44,476.391 in 1984 dollars, $108,983.057 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.