SOUTHERN NATURAL GAS CO — Gas transmission and gathering — incident on 2016-10-08

Gas transmission and gathering incident in Not Within a Municipality, JENKINS County, GA. Reported cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD. Reported consequences: 0 fatalities, 0 injuries, 79937 NATURAL GAS released, $125,000 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: 20160086.

Operator ID: 18516.

Reported incident date: 10/8/2016 14:06.

Location detail: 35 / 09+20

Cause detail: ENVIRONMENTAL CRACKING-RELATED

Cause detail: 10/08/2016; 2:06 PM EDST; SNG CONFIRMED A FAILURE HAD OCCURRED ON THE SNG 20-INCH WRENS SAVANNAH 2ND LOOP LINE AT MILEPOST 35 AND CHAIN STATION 9+20. SNG EMPLOYEES ISOLATED THE AFFECTED VALVE SECTION WITH THE UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM MAIN LINE VALVES. PIPE MATERIAL WAS COLLECTED AND SHIPPED FOR LAB ANALYSIS. THE ANALYSIS RESULTS WILL SHOW THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE TO LIKELY BE STRESS CORROSION CRACKING. THE PIPELINE WAS REPAIRED AND RETURNED TO A DETERMINED LOWER OPERATING PRESSURE, AGREED UPON BY PHMSA, ON 10/17/2016. SNG IS DEVELOPING PLANS TO PRESSURE TEST THE AFFECTED SEGMENT. SNG IS ALSO DEVELOPING PLANS TO INSPECT THE AFFECTED SEGMENT WITH ILI EMAT TOOL.

PHMSA trend classification: significant incident, not serious.

PHMSA standardized cause: MATERIAL FAILURE OF PIPE OR WELD — ENVIRONMENTAL CRACKING-RELATED.

PHMSA indexed costs: $353,220 reported total cost, $304,949.69 in 1984 dollars, $451,476.304 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.