EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2018-08-01

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, MIDLAND COUNTY County, TX. Reported cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE. Reported consequences: 1 fatalities, 4 injuries, 1119 NATURAL GAS released, $68,000 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: 20180085.

Operator ID: 4280.

Reported incident date: 8/1/2018 12:30.

Location detail: MP 3+0889

Cause detail: NEARBY INDUSTRIAL, MAN-MADE, OR OTHER FIRE/EXPLOSION AS PRIMARY CAUSE OF INCIDENT

Cause detail: ON AUGUST 1, 2018 AT APPROXIMATELY 11:14 AM CT, EPNG GAS CONTROL RECEIVED A REPORT OF A FIRE NEAR FM 1379 (I.E., FARM TO MARKET ROAD NO. 1379), WHICH WAS LATER IDENTIFIED TO BE IN THE VICINITY OF ITS L3130 NATURAL GAS PIPELINE IN MIDLAND COUNTY, TEXAS. SHORTLY BEFORE 11:51 AM CT, EPNG OPERATIONS CONFIRMED THE PRESENCE OF FLAMES ON THE EPNG RIGHT-OF-WAY (ROW) AND BY 12:16 PM CT HAD ISOLATED THE L3130 VALVE SECTION AND MONITORED PRESSURES ON THE ISOLATED SEGMENT AND CONFIRMED THAT THE PIPELINE WAS HOLDING PRESSURE. AN EPNG OPERATIONS SUPERVISOR WENT TO THE SITE OF THE RUPTURE AT 12:20 PM CT AND VISUALLY CONFIRMED THAT IT WAS THE NAVITAS MIDSTREAM PARTNERS' LINE THAT HAD RUPTURED. EPNG WAS GETTING READY TO BLOW DOWN ITS LINE WHEN THE RUPTURE OF THE EPNG LINE OCCURRED. AT 12:33 PM CT, EPNG'S RTU DATA LOG AT JAMESON CHECK METER ON L3130 SHOWED A "HIGH-HIGH" ALARM. DURING THE INVESTIGATION IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THE RUPTURE OCCURRED AT APPROXIMATELY 12:30 PM CT. AT APPROXIMATELY 12:44 PM CT, EPNG GAS CONTROL RECEIVED A CALL FROM THE EPNG OPERATIONS AT THE SITE STATING THAT ITS LINE HAD BEEN COMPROMISED. THREE NAVITAS EMPLOYEES, A NAVITAS CONTRACTOR EMPLOYED BY QIS AND THE EPNG OPERATIONS SUPERVISOR WERE ADMITTED TO THE HOSPITAL. ONE NAVITAS EMPLOYEE LATER DIED FROM HIS INJURIES. TWO FIREFIGHTERS WERE TREATED AND RELEASED AT THE HOSPITAL THE SAME DAY, AS WAS ONE OF THE NAVITAS EMPLOYEES. EPNG NOTIFIED THE NRC (NO. 1220198) AT 13:29 PM CT OF THE INCIDENT INVOLVING EPNG'S L3130 WITH AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY OF GAS RELEASED AND POSSIBLY CAUSED BY A FIRE ON A THIRD PARTY PIPELINE WITHIN THE ROW. THE NRC LOGGED THE REPORT AT 13:46 PM CT. EPNG PROVIDED A 48-HOUR NOTICE TO THE NRC (NO. 1220423) ON AUGUST 3, 2018 AT 11:51 CT TO UPDATE INFORMATION ON THE LOCATION OF THE INCIDENT, ESTIMATED VOLUME OF UNINTENTIONAL NATURAL GAS RELEASED, AND A REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE OPERATOR OF THE THIRD PARTY PIPELINE THAT ONE OF ITS EMPLOYEE'S INJURIES WERE FATAL. EPNG ISSUED ANOTHER REVISED NOTICE NRC (NO. 1220429) TO CORRECT THE TOTAL VOLUME OF UNINTENTIONAL NATURAL GAS RELEASED. THE CORRECT RELEASE VOLUME WAS 1,060 MSCF AT THE TIME OF THE 48 HOUR NOTICE. THE INVESTIGATION UTILIZED THE METALLURGICAL DATA COLLECTED FROM THE EVENT AND THE DNV SYSTEMATIC CAUSE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE (SCAT) ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS TOOL PER KINDER MORGAN/EPNG PROCEDURES TO DETERMINE BASIC CAUSE, ROOT CAUSE AND CONTRIBUTING FACTORS. BASED ON THE INVESTIGATION REPORT, WHICH WAS PROVIDED TO PHMSA, THE BASIC/ROOT CAUSES WERE DETERMINED TO BE "12.1 INADEQUATE PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE" - PER THE METALLURGY FINDINGS, THE NAVITAS LINE WAS LEAKING EVEN PRIOR TO THE RUPTURE. NAVITAS HAD NOT IDENTIFIED THE LEAK, THE SELECTIVE ERW SEAM CORROSION, NOR CONDUCTED REPAIRS/MAINTENANCE AND . "14.4 INADEQUATE MONITORING OF COMPLIANCE" - AFTER THE NAVITAS LINE RUPTURED, NAVITAS PERSONNEL DID NOT BELIEVE THAT THE NAVITAS LINE WAS BURNING AND ARGUED WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM KINDER MORGAN/EPNG, WHO TRIED TO TELL NAVITAS PERSONNEL ON THE SCENE THAT IT WAS THE NAVITAS LINE OBSERVED TO BE ON FIRE. THE INVESTIGATION ALSO DETERMINED THAT THE INITIAL RUPTURE LOCATION WAS AT THE NAVITAS H-LOOP (NPS 6) LINE AND IT CONTINUED TO BURN FOLLOWING THE INCIDENT UNTIL THE EVENING OF AUGUST 3, 2018. DURING THIS TIME, NAVITAS REPORTED THAT THE SOURCE OF THE FUEL FOR THE FIRE COULD NOT BE CONFIRMED. NAVITAS THOUGHT THE CAUSE MAY HAVE BEEN A LEAKING TAP VALVE, AND SO THEY WERE VERIFYING THAT THEIR VALVES WERE NOT LEAKING; ALSO NAVITAS LOOKED FOR POSSIBLE ADDITIONAL TAPS (INTERCONNECTS) THAT WERE NOT ON THEIR MAPS AND MAY HAVE BEEN FUELING THE FIRE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, serious incident.

PHMSA standardized cause: OTHER OUTSIDE FORCE DAMAGE — FIRE/EXPLOSION AS PRIMARY CAUSE.

PHMSA indexed costs: $94,786 reported total cost, $46,777.04 in 1984 dollars, $111,408.349 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.