"As best we can tell, the Seminole pipeline has not been affected by the explosion," said Curtis Turner, vice president of marketing at Mapco Inc., Tulsa, majority owner of Seminole Pipeline.
Turner said surface facilities at Seminole's 350,000 bbl storage dome, including pumps and motors, were damaged by the blast. But the storage facility, about 45 miles northwest of Houston, will be inoperative until repairs are completed, he said. At the time of the accident, the dome was storing about 287,000 bbl of LPG. In 1991, companies injected an average 242,269 bbl/month of LPG into the Seminole storage dome at an average injection pressure of 837 psig.
Mapco Pres. Bob Howe said, "I don't anticipate a major disruption. Once the fire is out on the (storage) site, we will be prepared to start the main line back up." He said Seminole could use alternative pipelines until its main line is reopened. Several competing pipeline companies had offered assistance to prevent LPG shortages from occurring at Mont Belvieu.
WHAT HAPPENED
The blast--shortly after 7 a.m. Apr. 7--occurred at a pipeline connecting the main Seminole line with the storage facility and caused shock waves felt 130 miles away.
A 5 year old boy who lived in a trailer near Seminole's LPG storage dome was killed, and 20 persons were injured.
At presstime, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials had not determined what pipelines had been involved in the explosion.
"We do know there was some sort of venting in a line, but we don't have any specifics yet," an NTSB official said at midweek last week.
"We have a pipeline leading out of or into the dome that we can't get close to, with a plume of fire 50-70 ft tall at one point.
"Two companies have pipelines connected to the storage facility and at this point, we're not sure which line was involved." Seminole's 14 in. pipeline transports 120,000-130,000 b/d of LPG. It connects Mid-America Pipeline system near Hobbs station in Gaines County, Tex., to major processing facilities at Mont Belvieu, Tex. The Seminole main line passes within a few hundred ft of Seminole's storage dome.
Coastline Pipeline Co., a subsidiary of United Texas Transmission Co., Houston, has an LPG line extending about 47 miles from the Seminole storage facility to a processing plant near Sheridan, Tex. According to the Texas Railroad Commission, Coastline's pipeline attaches to Seminole storage dome through a short Seminole interconnect.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
