I have just obtained from PHMSA under FOIL 523 pages of new information about the Apr 30, 3016 explosion of the Salem, Westmoreland county, PA explosion of the Spectra Texas Eastern Pipeline (TETCO).
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Here is the Salem data from PHMSA:
2 comments:
I regard gas pipelines as being dumb steel with antiquated SCADA engineering standards.
If continuous monitoring with overlapping methane measuring instruments with continuous FLIR surveilance would that create early detection? Was it likely that the Delmont explosion was preceded with a small leak before the catastrophe or was the failure sudden and not subject to have been identified with better detection engineering? Thanks.
Hi Samuel...
Dumb Steel w/antiquated SCADA... haha :) The only thing I'd add is that it's dumb steel which is trying to self destruct (by either electro-chemical corrosion, or structural failure resulting in the release of mechanical energy stored in the coiled steel.)
My best guess about Delmont (Salem) is that there was existing corrosion resulting in the loss of 30% of the wall thickness. (There are many reasons for the accelerated corrosion at this location, which I've iterated on my blog. 1: water seeps 2: natural salt springs associated with oil+gas production areas, 3: possible stray DC from the cathodic protection of a foreign pipeline associated with local storage.)
A 30% loss of wall thickness should have been immediately fixed, or else resulted in an immediate reduction of the MAOP, due to Barlow's formula. But of course these operators would never do that! They'd ship less gas, and therefore make less money!
But corrosion is such a systemic problem in the pipeline industry, that a 30% wall loss "didn't raise to Spectra's action threshold"!!! This was said at a public informational meeting, by Spectra's Andy Drake.
So in 4 years, they never replaced a section of pipe with a 30% wall loss!! Because it didn't meet their "Action threshold". Makes me wonder, what *is* their "action threshold"?!!! And they also didn't lower the MAOP.
So again it was perfectly reasonable to expect accelerated corrosion at this location. But the WORST part is that Spectra KNEW about the problem, and never fixed it in 4 Years!!! I find that amazing. I think the Executive Board of that company should all be in prison, for unnecessarily placing human lives at risk. That is IMO criminal negligence.
The last noteworthy thing about that location is that it is just 2 linear miles downstream from the Delmont compressor. This is the area most likely to be approaching the maximum pressure (MAOP)
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