EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2011-07-27

Gas transmission and gathering incident in GANADO, APACHE County, AZ. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 81475 NATURAL GAS released, $159,800 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: 20110308.

Operator ID: 4280.

Reported incident date: 7/27/2011 4:20.

Location detail: 119+1752

Cause detail: DESIGN-, CONSTRUCTION-, INSTALLATION-, OR FABRICATION-RELATED

Cause detail: A SECURITY GUARD CONTACTED EL PASO NATURAL GAS (EPNG) IN THE PRE-DAWN HOURS OF JULY 27, 2011, TO REPORT WHAT SOUNDED LIKE A RELEASE OF NATURAL GAS. EPNG PERSONNEL CONFIRMED A PRESSURE DROP IN ITS 30" 1201 PIPELINE AND FIELD TECHNICIANS RESPONDED TO THE SCENE. THERE WAS NO FIRE OR EXPLOSION, ONLY A RELEASE OF NATURAL GAS FROM A CIRCUMFERENTIAL CRACK IN A GIRTH WELD. VISUAL EXAMINATION AND METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS REVEALED THAT THE FAILURE WAS DUE TO DUCTILE OVERLOAD POSSIBLY RESULTING FROM EXTERNAL STRESSES. THE PIPELINE HAS BEEN REPAIRED AND PLACED BACK INTO SERVICE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION OR FABRICATION-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $569,150 reported total cost, $372,908.808 in 1984 dollars, $563,713.158 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.