EL PASO NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2017-01-10

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, PINAL County, AZ. Reported cause: CORROSION FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 3764 NATURAL GAS released, $43,000 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: 20170017.

Operator ID: 4280.

Reported incident date: 1/10/2017 8:00.

Location detail: MP 578+1278

Cause detail: EXTERNAL CORROSION

Cause detail: ON JANUARY 10, 2017, EL PASO NATURAL GAS COMPANY, LLC ("EPNG") GAS CONTROL WAS NOTIFIED BY A LOCAL LANDOWNER REPRESENTATIVE OF A NATURAL GAS LEAK AND SMALL FIRE AT APPROXIMATELY 11:50 AM MST. EPNG DISPATCHED OPERATING PERSONNEL TO THE SITE IMMEDIATELY. UPON THEIR ARRIVAL THEY MET WITH LOCAL FIRE AUTHORITIES, SECURED THE AREA, AND CONTACTED OTHER PIPELINE OPERATORS WITH PIPELINES KNOWN TO BE IN OR NEAR THE RIGHT-OF-WAY REGARDING THE OBSERVED LEAK. EPNG BEGAN INVESTIGATING THE SOURCE OF THE LEAK ONCE THE FIRE WAS EXTINGUISHED THAT SAME DAY. EPNG DETERMINED THE LOCATION OF THE LEAK ON LINE 1600 AT MILEPOST 578+1712 IN PINAL COUNTY, AZ, ON JANUARY 11, 2017 AT 10:00 AM MST AND AT 11:00 AM MST DURING THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE LINE (ERL) CALL IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THE RELEASE WOULD BE IN EXCESS OF 3,000 MCF REPORTING CRITERIA. AT THE CONCLUSION OF ITS INVESTIGATION, EPNG ESTIMATED THE UNINTENTIONAL RELEASE OF NATURAL GAS TO BE 3,764 MCF. EPNG COMPLETED ALL REPAIRS ON JANUARY 12, 2017 AND RETURNED LINE 1600 TO SERVICE ON JANUARY 12, 2017 AT 7:57 PM MST. THE ROOT CAUSE WAS A FAILURE OF THE PIPELINE DUE TO EXTERNAL CORROSION RESULTING IN LOCALIZED PITTING. THIS 30-DAY INCIDENT REPORT WAS UPDATED TO CORRECT THE TYPOGRAPHIC ERROR IN THE NRC REPORT DATE PROVIDED IN PART A, QUESTION 7 FROM 01/10/17 TO 01/11/17 AND CORRECT THE TIME ZONE FROM 13:17 PM EST TO 11:17 AM MST. ALSO, THIS REPORT INCLUDES A CHANGE IN THE TIME REPORTED IN RESPONSE TO PART A, QUESTION NO. 19B FROM 12:40 TO 12:30 AM MST AND THE RESPONSE TO PART A, QUESTION NO. 15A FROM 14:35 TO 14:30 PM MST AS THE TIME THE LINE SEGMENT WAS ISOLATED. THESE TIMES REFLECT THOSE REPORTED IN OUR FINAL INCIDENT TIMELINE.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: CORROSION — EXTERNAL.

PHMSA indexed costs: $128,792 reported total cost, $101,789.218 in 1984 dollars, $151,842.452 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.