NORTHERN BORDER PIPELINE COMPANY — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2016-02-25

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, MORTON County, ND. Reported cause: INCORRECT OPERATION. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 0 released, $291,906 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: 20160023.

Operator ID: 13769.

Reported incident date: 2/25/2016 12:12.

Location detail: ND 203.4

Cause detail: OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION

Cause detail: REPAIRS TO A BUILDING ROOF VENT WERE BEING CARRIED OUT BY COMPANY PERSONNEL. THE WORK INVOLVED GRINDING AND WELDING. IN SPITE OF SAFETY PRECAUTIONS IN PLACE, SPARKS FROM THE WORK STARTED A FIRE IN OILY RESIDUE IN A COVERED TRENCH DESIGNED TO CATCH OIL, WATER, AND OTHER LIQUIDS. THE FIRE CAUSED DAMAGE TO ELECTRICAL WIRING AND CABLE SUPPORTS. DAMAGE TO THE WIRING CAUSED THE UNIT RECYCLE VALVE TO OPEN AND GAS CIRCULATING THROUGH THE COMPRESSOR HEATED UP TO THE POINT WHERE THE UNIT SHUT DOWN AUTOMATICALLY ON HIGH COMPRESSOR DISCHARGE TEMPERATURE. PERSONNEL ON SITE SAW SMOKE COMING FROM THE COMPRESSOR BUILDING AND INITIATED A STATION EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN. THIS ACTION ISOLATED THE COMPRESSOR STATION PIPING FROM THE MAINLINE AND VENTED GAS WITHIN THE STATION. PERSONNEL CALLED THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WHICH RESPONDED AND EXTINGUISHED THE FIRE. THE EVENT IS CONSIDERED AN INCIDENT BECAUSE TRANSCANADA JUDGES IT TO BE SIGNIFICANT IN THAT THE COST TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE IS CONSIDERABLE, THE COMPRESSOR UNIT IS OUT OF SERVICE FOR AN EXTENDED TIME PERIOD, AND THE UNAVAILABILITY OF THE COMPRESSION FACILITIES RESULTED IN A RESTRICTION TO THROUGHPUT CAPACITY THAT IMPACTS DOWNSTREAM CUSTOMERS.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: INCORRECT OPERATION — OTHER INCORRECT OPERATION.

PHMSA indexed costs: $293,617 reported total cost, $146,519.52 in 1984 dollars, $359,830.663 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.