EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2014-08-20

Gas transmission and gathering incident in WENDEN, LA PAZ County, AZ. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 2174 NATURAL GAS released, $50,305 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: 20140096.

Operator ID: 4280.

Reported incident date: 8/20/2014 12:30.

Location detail: MP 38+3130

Cause detail: ORIGINAL MANUFACTURING-RELATED (NOT GIRTH WELD OR OTHER WELDS FORMED IN THE FIELD)

Cause detail: A LOCAL RANCHER NOTIFIED EL PASO NATURAL GAS COMPANY (EPNG) GAS CONTROL THAT HE SAW BLOWING GAS IN THE AREA OF THE EPNG NATURAL GAS PIPELINE. EPNG EMERGENCY PROCEDURES WERE INITIATED AND LOCAL OPERATIONS PERSONNEL WERE DEPLOYED TO THE LOCATION TO BOTH VERIFY THE LEAK AND TO SHUT IN THE PIPELINE ONCE THE LEAK WAS CONFIRMED. AFTER THE LEAK LOCATION WAS CONFIRMED, THE PIPELINE SECTION WAS ISOLATED AND BLOWN DOWN. THE JOINT WHERE THE LEAK EXISTED WAS CUT OUT AND REPLACED. THE METALLURGICAL REPORT OF THE CUTOUT JOINT CONCLUDED THAT THE EPNG NPS 30 LINE L1104 LEAKED DUE TO A SOLIDIFICATION CRACK IN THE CENTERLINE OF THE WELD WHICH HAS BEEN PRESENT SINCE THE PIPE MANUFACTURING.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — MANUFACTURING-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $131,676 reported total cost, $81,815.589 in 1984 dollars, $131,977.337 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.