SOUTHERN NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2016-11-28

Gas transmission and gathering incident in MILLEDGEVILLE, BALDWIN County, GA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 41058 NATURAL GAS released, $6,000 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: 20160095.

Operator ID: 18516.

Reported incident date: 11/28/2016 6:35.

Location detail: 420.2

Cause detail: OTHER EQUIPMENT FAILURE

Cause detail: KINDER MORGAN SOUTHERN NATURAL GAS (SNG) COMPANY GAS CONTROL PERSONNEL RECEIVED A UNIT MALFUNCTION ALARM FOR HALL GATE COMPRESSOR STATION (BALDWIN COUNTY, GA) ON NOVEMBER 28, 2016. UPON ARRIVAL AT THE STATION BY LOCAL SNG OPERATIONS EMPLOYEE, IT WAS DETERMINED THAT GAS WAS BLOWING THROUGH THE SUCTION VALVE OF UNIT NO. 3, RELEASING SAFELY THROUGH THE UNIT VENT VALVE AND OUT THE STATION'S BLOWDOWN PIPING. EMPLOYEE ISOLATED THE SOURCE AND STOPPED THE NATURAL GAS RELEASE. INVESTIGATION RESULTED IN THE PROBABLE CAUSE BEING FAILURE OF THE SEAT FOR THE PILOT IN A SOLENOID THAT CAUSED UNIT NO. 3 SUCTION VALVE TO OPEN, RELEASING GAS. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE SOLENOID SEAT FAILURE IS LIKELY DEBRIS THAT GOT INTO THE SYSTEM. VERY SMALL PARTICLES, LESS THAN 25 MICRONS, CAN GET THROUGH THE FILTER AND CAUSE FAILURE/LEAKAGE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — OTHER EQUIPMENT FAILURE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $95,917 reported total cost, $98,718.997 in 1984 dollars, $124,898.268 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.