NATIONAL FUEL GAS SUPPLY CORP — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2015-03-05

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, ALLEGANY County, NY. Reported cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 12400 NATURAL GAS released, $8,500 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: 20150037.

Operator ID: 13063.

Reported incident date: 3/5/2015 17:54.

Location detail: STATION WGA3

Cause detail: MALFUNCTION OF CONTROL/RELIEF EQUIPMENT

Cause detail: BEECH HILL COMPRESSOR STATION STARTING GAS REGULATOR MALFUNCTIONED RAISING THE DOWNSTREAM PRESSURE ABOVE THE 175 PSIG SET POINT TO 341 PSIG. THE OVER PRESSURIZATION CAUSED THE RUPTURE DISC RATED AT 311 PSIG TO BURST AT 17:54 ON MARCH 5. THE DOWNSTREAM PIPING HAS AN MAOP OF 300 PSIG AND WAS NOT IN USE AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT. THE PRESSURE DROPPED IMMEDIATELY TO APPROXIMATELY 140 PSIG AS THE RUPTURE DISC RELIEVED THE PIPELINE PRESSURE. THE COMPANY WAS NOTIFIED OF A FIRE AT THE FACILITY AT 05:04 ON MARCH 6. AT 05:20, COMPANY PERSONNEL ACTIVATED THE EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN SYSTEM. SITE SECURITY CAMERAS SHOW THAT THE GAS DISCHARGE DID NOT IGNITE UNTIL 04:43 ON MARCH 6. THE REGULATOR WAS REPLACED AND THE STATION WAS BACK IN SERVICE AT 15:50 ON MARCH 6.

PHMSA trend classification: not significant, not serious.

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

PHMSA indexed costs: $42,200 reported total cost, $35,511.821 in 1984 dollars, $48,868.704 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.