PHMSA Report 20180061 - SUSQUEHANNA GATHERING COMPANY I, LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2018-05-18 | Regulus

Gas transmission and gathering incident in NEW MILFORD, SUSQUEHANNA County, PA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 3260 NATURAL GAS released, $3,000 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: 20180061.

Operator ID: 39109.

Reported incident date: 5/18/2018 3:03.

Location detail: UNIT 10

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: CDP 5, A MULTI-UNIT COMPRESSOR STATION IN GATHERING SERVICE, SUFFERED AN UNINTENTIONAL RELEASE OF NATURAL GAS ON THE MORNING OF MAY 18TH, 2018. THIS RELEASE WAS A RESULT OF A FAILURE OF A MECHANICAL RELIEF VALVE BETWEEN THE 2ND STAGE COMPRESSION AND THE COOLER ON UNIT #10. THE RELIEF VALVE FAILED SAFE AT A PRESSURE BELOW THE MAOP AND CONTINUED TO VENT GAS UNTIL THE UNIT WAS TAKEN OFF-LINE AND THE FLOW OF GAS WAS SECURED. THE EVENT BEGAN AT 03:03 HOURS AND LASTED UNTIL 06:51 HOURS. A LOCAL LAND OWNER REPORTED A NOISE COMPLAINT TO ANOTHER OPERATOR IN THE SHARED PIPELINE CORRIDOR, WHO IN TURN NOTIFIED DTE GAS CONTROL AT 06:03 HOURS. THE ON-CALL TECHNICIAN WAS DISPATCHED TO INVESTIGATE. UPON ARRIVAL, HE FOUND GAS BLOWING FROM A RELIEF VALVE ON UNIT #10, A SKID-MOUNTED RECIPROCATING COMPRESSOR. THE BLOWING GAS WAS SECURED BY SECURING THE INLET AND OUTLET VALVES ON THE UNIT. FOLLOW UP INVESTIGATIONS DETERMINED THAT THE RELIEF VALVE OPERATED BELOW IT'S SET POINT AND FAILED TO RESET. THE INCIDENT AND INVESTIGATION HAVE ALSO BEEN REPORTED TO THE PA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION. SECOND (48 HOUR) NRC REPORT NUMBER IS 1212719.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $7,082 reported total cost, $5,108.029 in 1984 dollars, $8,218.46 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.