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 the two manual block valves, upstream and downstream of the incident site.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Component involved
- pipeline (weld)
- Failure mode
- rupture
- Initiating cause
- H2-driven material degradation
- 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.
The ROOT CAUSE was not provided.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/07/2024
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen transport and distribution
- Sub-application
- H2 delivery to customers
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
H2 pipeline
- Process temperature range [C]
- ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- medium pressure (2 to 10 MPa)
- Location type
- Underground
- Location
- countryside 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 fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 500.948
- Post-event summary
No consequence to environment or persons. Only costs related to materials damage and emergency intervention.
136 thousand standard cubic feet went lost during the leak (unintentional release)
- Emergency action
Local and federal first responders intervened (unknown their actions).
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount (kg)
- 322
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Release pressure [MPa]
- 2.3
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
- Reference & weblink
US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/safety-reports/pipeline-failure-investigation-reports
