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Explosion Shuts TransCanada's Natural Gas 'Bison' Pipeline in Wyoming
The Bison Pipeline, transporting natural gas from Wyoming's Powder River Basin to North Dakota and the Midwest, has exploded 20 miles west of Gillette, Wyoming. The Bison Pipeline began operation in Jan, 2010 with capacity for 407 million cubic feet per day. This time everyone was lucky as nobody was close enough to be killed or injured. The explosion left a crater and a sent a piece of 40 foot long pipe section flying 70 feet away from the pipeline's original position, indicating that IF anyone was nearby they would not be so lucky!
Explosion shuts natural gas "Bison" pipeline in Wyoming
Friday, July 22, 2011
by EFO Staff
"The Bison Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that begins in northeastern Wyoming, ruptured and then exploded on Wednesday night, 20 miles west of Gillette. Official reports say there were no injuries or property damage in the explosion.
TransCanada, owner of the pipeline, closed the pipeline to work with regulatory agencies while they conduct an investigation. The cause of the explosion is unknown.
According to TransCanada, the Bison Pipeline went into operation on Jan. 14, 2010. The 303-mile, 30-inch-diameter interstate pipeline had an initial capacity of 407 million cubic feet a day, all of which are under long-term contract, the TransCanada website says. With additional compression, the pipeline is expandable to 1 billion cubic feet a day.
A 60-foot section of the pipeline was destroyed, and pieces of the pipe were found in the surrounding area. Company officials said the gas flow was shut down about 15 minutes after the occurrence.
While the amount of natural gas that was vented in the explosion has not been determined, earlier in the day, the Bison was reported to have been transporting 365 million cubic feet of natural gas.
A story posted online for the Washington Post noted that the Wyoming Pipeline Authority says other pipelines have enough surplus capacity to make up for the Bison Pipeline while it’s closed.
Bison begins in northeastern Wyoming and travels northeast through Montana and North Dakota before connecting with Northern Border Pipeline Company in North Dakota. Natural gas transported on Bison will reach Midwest markets via Northern Border. Bison is TransCanada’s first pipeline to access natural gas produced in the U.S. Rocky Mountain region."
article here;
http://engineeringfailures.org/?p=574
Newly Constructed Pipeline Explodes
Posted on July 29, 2011 by Editor
"Canada — The Bison Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that begins in northeastern Wyoming, ruptured and then exploded on Wednesday night, 20 miles west of Gillette. Official reports say there were no injuries or property damage in the explosion.
TransCanada, owner of the pipeline, closed the pipeline to work with regulatory agencies while they conduct an investigation. The cause of the explosion is unknown.
According to TransCanada, the Bison Pipeline went into operation on Jan. 14, 2011. The 303-mile, 30-inch-diameter interstate pipeline had an initial capacity of 407 million cubic feet a day, all of which are under long-term contract, the TransCanada website says. With additional compression, the pipeline is expandable to 1 billion cubic feet a day.
A 60-foot section of the pipeline was destroyed, and pieces of the pipe were found in the surrounding area. Company officials said the gas flow was shut down about 15 minutes after the occurrence.
While the amount of natural gas that was vented in the explosion has not been determined, earlier in the day, the Bison was reported to have been transporting 365 million cubic feet of natural gas.
A story posted online for the Washington Post noted that the Wyoming Pipeline Authority says other pipelines have enough surplus capacity to make up for the Bison Pipeline while it’s closed.
Meanwhile, the 42-inch Ruby Pipeline is set to begin delivering gas by El Paso Corp. from western Wyoming to Oregon within days, reports say.
Bison begins in northeastern Wyoming and travels northeast through Montana and North Dakota before connecting with Northern Border Pipeline Company in North Dakota. Natural gas transported on Bison will reach Midwest markets via Northern Border. Bison is TransCanada’s first pipeline to access natural gas produced in the U.S. Rocky Mountain region."
article here;
http://www.firedirect.net/index.php/2011/07/newly-constructed-pipeline-explodes/
'Mechanical damage' burst Bison Pipeline in Wyoming
"An initial assessment of the ruptured Bison Pipeline in northeast Wyoming shows evidence of “mechanical damage,” says a spokesman for the company that owns the pipeline.
“Something hit it,” said James Millar of Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. “We don’t know when, we don’t know what, so we’re continuing analysis on that as you would expect.”
Natural gas carried by the underground, 30-inch pipeline exploded into the sky about 7:30 p.m. on July 20.
The explosion ripped apart a 60-foot length of pipe according to eyewitnesses who visited the site of the incident about 20 miles west of Gillette, and was heard at least 30 miles away.
TransCanada’s safety systems registered the pipeline’s drop in pressure and closed valves to cut the flow of natural gas in the line.
Nobody was injured and no property was damaged by the explosion other than the pipeline, which lay in one large, split section and several smaller pieces, according to Campbell County emergency responders who visited the site soon after the blast.
TransCanada representatives arrived soon after, followed by federal investigators.
The swift determination of mechanical damage is unusual, said TransCanada’s Millar.
“Usually we don’t get something this early that you get an indication what occurred,” he said. “On this one they were able to see from visual inspections that gave them a pretty good indication of what would have caused the break.”
Investigators with the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration handed the site back to TransCanada on Sunday, Millar said.
Since then the company has been repairing the ruptured line.
The company should finish repairs to the pipeline late today and wait for a federal go-ahead before sending any gas through the line.
In the wake of the rupture, producers rerouted gas through other pipelines heading out of state.
TransCanada doesn’t yet know when it will get the federal OK to restart operations on the pipe, Millar said.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration didn’t respond to a request for an update on its investigation of the rupture.
The Bison Pipeline is indirectly owned by a subsidiary of TransCanada Corp.
The 302-mile pipeline moves gas from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin north to the Northern Border Pipeline in North Dakota on its way to customers in the Midwest.
The Bison Pipeline entered service in January."
article here;
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_a374b02e-63eb-5893-b55c-2c957a220cf0.html
Natural gas pipeline explodes near Gillette
By JEREMY FUGLEBERG Star-Tribune energy reporter
"A natural gas pipeline west of Gillette exploded Wednesday night. It shook nearby homes and echoed at least 30 miles away but didn’t cause any injuries or property damage, officials and a resident said.
The blast ripped open a 60-foot section of the Bison Pipeline and shot several pieces of 30-inch-diameter pipe around the bluffs on land about 20 miles west of Gillette at about 7:30 p.m.
The explosion’s shock wave slammed Dan and Candy Mooney’s house, about a mile from the rupture, as well as his brother’s house not far away.
The earth-shaking rattling and boom were followed by what Dan Mooney described as a “terrible roar” as natural gas under high pressure burst from the broken pipe.
“If you’ve ever heard a jet fighter going off, like an F-16 or something like that, it sounded like many of them going off at the same time,” he said. “It roared, it just screamed.”
Mooney said a friend from Recluse, about 30 miles north of Gillette, called in to say the explosion could be heard that far away. Several residents in and near Gillette dialed emergency dispatchers to report “sounds of rockets going off, whooshing sounds and some explosions,” said David King, Campbell County Emergency Management Agency coordinator.
The roaring stopped as the pipeline system detected the drop in pressure from the rupture and closed off the flow of gas within 15 minutes of the breach, according to Terry Cunha, spokesman for TransCanada Corp., which owns the pipeline.
King as well as other county emergency responders traveled to the site, but waited for a TransCanada team to check the area for natural gas pockets before anyone got close to the explosion site —a crater in the ground and pipeline pieces blown well clear of the pipe trench.
A 40-foot piece of the pipe, split along its length and spread open with jagged ends, lay almost 70 feet away from the pipeline path, said Rod Warne, Campbell County Fire Department assistant chief, who visited the site. In the gathering dark, he saw at least one other piece of pipe blown nearby.
“I’ve never been to one that had that big of a pipe, that big of a chunk blown out that far,” he said.
All officials and Mooney said the explosion didn’t cause any injuries or property damage other than to the pipeline.
It’s not yet clear what caused the pipeline to explode, and there’s no clear timeline for when the company will rebuild the line and get it back into use, said Cunha, the TransCanada spokesman.
“Unfortunately this incident happened, but we’ll do a thorough review and work with regulatory agencies to investigate the cause of this and ensure we prevent it from happening again,” he said.
It’s not yet clear how much natural gas was vented, but the pipeline was transporting natural gas on Wednesday at a rate of 365 million cubic feet a day, Cunha said.
The 303-mile line was designed to transport up to 477 million cubic feet a day of natural gas from the Powder River Basin northeast through Montana to the Northern Border Pipeline in North Dakota for transport to customers in the Midwest. The pipeline went on line in January and is owned by TransCanada Corp. through its interest in TC Pipelines.
TransCanada was able to provide 50 percent of the pipeline’s volume to customers on Thursday, but the pipeline will be shut down starting today as the investigation continues, Cunha said.
While the closure of the pipeline might cause some problems for a day or two, other pipelines will quickly pick up the slack, said Brian Jeffries, executive director of the Wyoming Pipeline Authority.
The state’s natural gas production is about what it was before the Bison Pipeline came on line, so the state’s pipeline system has other ways of moving the gas, he said.
“I expect any impact on production and flow to be relatively short-lived,” he said."
Read more: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_2e99d7e2-0b53-57e0-b3f4-005a025ededf.html#ixzz1TWvDJJRh
NOT the FIRST TIME EITHER!!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
ANOTHER TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. explosion in Northern Ontario
"Shortly after 11 p.m. last night, people near the Northern Ontario community of Beardmore, Ontario began calling in reports to the OPP of flames reaching hundreds of feet into the night sky. A rupture in a TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. natural gas pipeline caused an explosion so large that the fire could be seen by airplanes passing overhead.
Several hundred nearby residents were forced from their homes, but the fire burnt itself out after a few hours. TransCanada's crew, which arrived on scene within an hour of the OPP, advised that the danger zone was within 1 km of the pipeline. Reports say that the National Energy Board (NEB) is sending two inspectors from Calgary to investigate the scene.
In September, 2009, less than 18 months ago, another section of a TransCanada gas pipeline exploded near Englehart, Ontario. Witnesses to that explosion described the sound of a jumbo jet crash. The 2009 rupture happened on the 36 inch diameter main line."
article here;
http://landownerlaw.blogspot.com/2011/02/another-transcanada-pipelines-ltd.html
Englehart and Beardmore in Ontario and now Gillette, Wyoming. That is three explosions in less than four years! Quite a safety track record for TransCanada, EH?!
Friday, July 22, 2011
by EFO Staff
"The Bison Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that begins in northeastern Wyoming, ruptured and then exploded on Wednesday night, 20 miles west of Gillette. Official reports say there were no injuries or property damage in the explosion.
TransCanada, owner of the pipeline, closed the pipeline to work with regulatory agencies while they conduct an investigation. The cause of the explosion is unknown.
According to TransCanada, the Bison Pipeline went into operation on Jan. 14, 2010. The 303-mile, 30-inch-diameter interstate pipeline had an initial capacity of 407 million cubic feet a day, all of which are under long-term contract, the TransCanada website says. With additional compression, the pipeline is expandable to 1 billion cubic feet a day.
A 60-foot section of the pipeline was destroyed, and pieces of the pipe were found in the surrounding area. Company officials said the gas flow was shut down about 15 minutes after the occurrence.
While the amount of natural gas that was vented in the explosion has not been determined, earlier in the day, the Bison was reported to have been transporting 365 million cubic feet of natural gas.
A story posted online for the Washington Post noted that the Wyoming Pipeline Authority says other pipelines have enough surplus capacity to make up for the Bison Pipeline while it’s closed.
Bison begins in northeastern Wyoming and travels northeast through Montana and North Dakota before connecting with Northern Border Pipeline Company in North Dakota. Natural gas transported on Bison will reach Midwest markets via Northern Border. Bison is TransCanada’s first pipeline to access natural gas produced in the U.S. Rocky Mountain region."
article here;
http://engineeringfailures.org/?p=574
Newly Constructed Pipeline Explodes
Posted on July 29, 2011 by Editor
"Canada — The Bison Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that begins in northeastern Wyoming, ruptured and then exploded on Wednesday night, 20 miles west of Gillette. Official reports say there were no injuries or property damage in the explosion.
TransCanada, owner of the pipeline, closed the pipeline to work with regulatory agencies while they conduct an investigation. The cause of the explosion is unknown.
According to TransCanada, the Bison Pipeline went into operation on Jan. 14, 2011. The 303-mile, 30-inch-diameter interstate pipeline had an initial capacity of 407 million cubic feet a day, all of which are under long-term contract, the TransCanada website says. With additional compression, the pipeline is expandable to 1 billion cubic feet a day.
A 60-foot section of the pipeline was destroyed, and pieces of the pipe were found in the surrounding area. Company officials said the gas flow was shut down about 15 minutes after the occurrence.
While the amount of natural gas that was vented in the explosion has not been determined, earlier in the day, the Bison was reported to have been transporting 365 million cubic feet of natural gas.
A story posted online for the Washington Post noted that the Wyoming Pipeline Authority says other pipelines have enough surplus capacity to make up for the Bison Pipeline while it’s closed.
Meanwhile, the 42-inch Ruby Pipeline is set to begin delivering gas by El Paso Corp. from western Wyoming to Oregon within days, reports say.
Bison begins in northeastern Wyoming and travels northeast through Montana and North Dakota before connecting with Northern Border Pipeline Company in North Dakota. Natural gas transported on Bison will reach Midwest markets via Northern Border. Bison is TransCanada’s first pipeline to access natural gas produced in the U.S. Rocky Mountain region."
article here;
http://www.firedirect.net/index.php/2011/07/newly-constructed-pipeline-explodes/
'Mechanical damage' burst Bison Pipeline in Wyoming
"An initial assessment of the ruptured Bison Pipeline in northeast Wyoming shows evidence of “mechanical damage,” says a spokesman for the company that owns the pipeline.
“Something hit it,” said James Millar of Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. “We don’t know when, we don’t know what, so we’re continuing analysis on that as you would expect.”
Natural gas carried by the underground, 30-inch pipeline exploded into the sky about 7:30 p.m. on July 20.
The explosion ripped apart a 60-foot length of pipe according to eyewitnesses who visited the site of the incident about 20 miles west of Gillette, and was heard at least 30 miles away.
TransCanada’s safety systems registered the pipeline’s drop in pressure and closed valves to cut the flow of natural gas in the line.
Nobody was injured and no property was damaged by the explosion other than the pipeline, which lay in one large, split section and several smaller pieces, according to Campbell County emergency responders who visited the site soon after the blast.
TransCanada representatives arrived soon after, followed by federal investigators.
The swift determination of mechanical damage is unusual, said TransCanada’s Millar.
“Usually we don’t get something this early that you get an indication what occurred,” he said. “On this one they were able to see from visual inspections that gave them a pretty good indication of what would have caused the break.”
Investigators with the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration handed the site back to TransCanada on Sunday, Millar said.
Since then the company has been repairing the ruptured line.
The company should finish repairs to the pipeline late today and wait for a federal go-ahead before sending any gas through the line.
In the wake of the rupture, producers rerouted gas through other pipelines heading out of state.
TransCanada doesn’t yet know when it will get the federal OK to restart operations on the pipe, Millar said.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration didn’t respond to a request for an update on its investigation of the rupture.
The Bison Pipeline is indirectly owned by a subsidiary of TransCanada Corp.
The 302-mile pipeline moves gas from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin north to the Northern Border Pipeline in North Dakota on its way to customers in the Midwest.
The Bison Pipeline entered service in January."
article here;
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_a374b02e-63eb-5893-b55c-2c957a220cf0.html
Natural gas pipeline explodes near Gillette
By JEREMY FUGLEBERG Star-Tribune energy reporter
"A natural gas pipeline west of Gillette exploded Wednesday night. It shook nearby homes and echoed at least 30 miles away but didn’t cause any injuries or property damage, officials and a resident said.
The blast ripped open a 60-foot section of the Bison Pipeline and shot several pieces of 30-inch-diameter pipe around the bluffs on land about 20 miles west of Gillette at about 7:30 p.m.
The explosion’s shock wave slammed Dan and Candy Mooney’s house, about a mile from the rupture, as well as his brother’s house not far away.
The earth-shaking rattling and boom were followed by what Dan Mooney described as a “terrible roar” as natural gas under high pressure burst from the broken pipe.
“If you’ve ever heard a jet fighter going off, like an F-16 or something like that, it sounded like many of them going off at the same time,” he said. “It roared, it just screamed.”
Mooney said a friend from Recluse, about 30 miles north of Gillette, called in to say the explosion could be heard that far away. Several residents in and near Gillette dialed emergency dispatchers to report “sounds of rockets going off, whooshing sounds and some explosions,” said David King, Campbell County Emergency Management Agency coordinator.
The roaring stopped as the pipeline system detected the drop in pressure from the rupture and closed off the flow of gas within 15 minutes of the breach, according to Terry Cunha, spokesman for TransCanada Corp., which owns the pipeline.
King as well as other county emergency responders traveled to the site, but waited for a TransCanada team to check the area for natural gas pockets before anyone got close to the explosion site —a crater in the ground and pipeline pieces blown well clear of the pipe trench.
A 40-foot piece of the pipe, split along its length and spread open with jagged ends, lay almost 70 feet away from the pipeline path, said Rod Warne, Campbell County Fire Department assistant chief, who visited the site. In the gathering dark, he saw at least one other piece of pipe blown nearby.
“I’ve never been to one that had that big of a pipe, that big of a chunk blown out that far,” he said.
All officials and Mooney said the explosion didn’t cause any injuries or property damage other than to the pipeline.
It’s not yet clear what caused the pipeline to explode, and there’s no clear timeline for when the company will rebuild the line and get it back into use, said Cunha, the TransCanada spokesman.
“Unfortunately this incident happened, but we’ll do a thorough review and work with regulatory agencies to investigate the cause of this and ensure we prevent it from happening again,” he said.
It’s not yet clear how much natural gas was vented, but the pipeline was transporting natural gas on Wednesday at a rate of 365 million cubic feet a day, Cunha said.
The 303-mile line was designed to transport up to 477 million cubic feet a day of natural gas from the Powder River Basin northeast through Montana to the Northern Border Pipeline in North Dakota for transport to customers in the Midwest. The pipeline went on line in January and is owned by TransCanada Corp. through its interest in TC Pipelines.
TransCanada was able to provide 50 percent of the pipeline’s volume to customers on Thursday, but the pipeline will be shut down starting today as the investigation continues, Cunha said.
While the closure of the pipeline might cause some problems for a day or two, other pipelines will quickly pick up the slack, said Brian Jeffries, executive director of the Wyoming Pipeline Authority.
The state’s natural gas production is about what it was before the Bison Pipeline came on line, so the state’s pipeline system has other ways of moving the gas, he said.
“I expect any impact on production and flow to be relatively short-lived,” he said."
Read more: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_2e99d7e2-0b53-57e0-b3f4-005a025ededf.html#ixzz1TWvDJJRh
NOT the FIRST TIME EITHER!!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
ANOTHER TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. explosion in Northern Ontario
"Shortly after 11 p.m. last night, people near the Northern Ontario community of Beardmore, Ontario began calling in reports to the OPP of flames reaching hundreds of feet into the night sky. A rupture in a TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. natural gas pipeline caused an explosion so large that the fire could be seen by airplanes passing overhead.
Several hundred nearby residents were forced from their homes, but the fire burnt itself out after a few hours. TransCanada's crew, which arrived on scene within an hour of the OPP, advised that the danger zone was within 1 km of the pipeline. Reports say that the National Energy Board (NEB) is sending two inspectors from Calgary to investigate the scene.
In September, 2009, less than 18 months ago, another section of a TransCanada gas pipeline exploded near Englehart, Ontario. Witnesses to that explosion described the sound of a jumbo jet crash. The 2009 rupture happened on the 36 inch diameter main line."
article here;
http://landownerlaw.blogspot.com/2011/02/another-transcanada-pipelines-ltd.html
Englehart and Beardmore in Ontario and now Gillette, Wyoming. That is three explosions in less than four years! Quite a safety track record for TransCanada, EH?!
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