Event
- Event ID
- 1057
- Quality
- Description
- Release from a welding of a hydrogen transmission pipeline
At 12:45 pm the operation control centre (OCC) recognised that a customer flow and pressure dropped significantly.
At 13:28 the OCC made the decision to close the upstream remote operated valve.
At 15:00 the pipeline technician arrived on site and confirmed the breach in the pipeline.
Additional pipeline operations technicians were deployed to isolate both manual block valve upstream and downstream of the incident site. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Fire (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Pipeline (Weld)
- How was it involved?
- Rupture
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The initial cause was the complete failure of a pipe girth weld, probably at the heat-affected zone, by hydrogen induced cracking.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- Pipeline
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- underground pipepine,welding
- Location type
- Underground
- Location description
- Countriside Or Desert
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
- DESCRIPTION OF THE FACILITY
The pipeline had been installed in 1992. it was made of carbon steel, with a Max operative pressure of 375 psig. At the moment of the incident the pressure was 374 psig.
Gas flow was 7284 mcf
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 500948
- Post-event summary
- No consequence to environment or persons. Only costs related to materials damage and emergency intervention.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 322 kg
- Actual pressure (MPa)
- 2.6
- Design pressure (MPa)
- 2.3
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA: <br />
https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/safety-reports/pipeline-failure-investigation…
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
