TEXAS GAS TRANSMISSION LLC — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2010-12-24

Gas transmission and gathering incident in YOUNGSVILLE, LAFAYETTE County, LA. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 654 NATURAL GAS released, $300,000 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: 20110007.

Operator ID: 19270.

Reported incident date: 12/24/2010 0:47.

Location detail: 040.189900

Cause detail: COMPRESSOR OR COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: ON DECEMBER 24TH, 2010 AT 12:50 AM THE TEXAS GAS, GAS CONTROL CENTER, RECEIVED VARIOUS ALARMS INDICATING FIRE, VIBRATION, AND EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN (ESD) ALARMS WERE ACTIVATED. THE GAS CONTROLLER CONTACTED THE LOCAL OPERATOR ON DUTY AND HE WAS DISPATCHED TO THE SITE. TEXAS GAS' FIRST RESPONDER ARRIVED ON LOCATION AT APPROXIMATELY 1:20 AM. UPON ARRIVING, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT AND STATE POLICE WERE ON SITE AND THE LOCATION WAS SECURE. ONCE CLEARED BY THE FIRE CHIEF ON SITE, TEXAS GAS PERSONNEL ENTERED THE SITE TO ASSESS THE DAMAGE. A GAS UNLOADER ON ENGINE #1 HAD SEPARATED FROM THE COMPRESSOR WHICH RESULTED IN A GAS RELEASE AND ULTIMATE IGNITION. THE EIGHT ENGINE BOLTS THAT SECURED THE UNLOADER WERE GATHERED AND SENT TO A METALLURGIST TO BE ANALYZED. THE METALLURGICAL REPORT DETERMINED THAT SIX OF THE EIGHT BOLTS FAILED DUE TO HIGH CYCLE FATIGUE. THE REPAIRED UNLOADER WAS TESTED BY DRESSER-RAND. THE UNLOADER WAS INSTALLED ON ENGINE #1 ON 11-21-2011. THE UNIT WAS RETURNED TO SERVICE ON 11-28-2011. ADDED DATA TO PART E5.F AS REQUESTED BY PHMSA.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE — PUMP/COMPRESSOR OR PUMP/COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT.

PHMSA indexed costs: $306,100 reported total cost, $167,726.065 in 1984 dollars, $411,005.6 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.