1. Actions Available and Recommended Next Steps After Third-Party Damage on a
Natural Gas Distribution Pipeline
2. SUMMARY OF THE INCIDENT
Summary of the Incident *
At 12:50 am on 15 February 2022, Emergency Services were
called to the corner of Cross Road and Hill Avenue in
Cumberland Park.
One of Sydney Water's contractors, while digging to repair a
water main, ruptured a major gas main nearby, which resulted
in gas leak and created the potential for an explosion.
There were no injuries, but residents of 40 homes within a 100-
metre radius were asked to evacuate in middle of night .
Photo credit ABC News
* Fictitious incident based on
actual incident in Adelaide
3. The leak has forced evacuation of
dozens of surrounding homes
Green hydrogen plant 6 km away !
OCCURRENCE SITE
4. Based on available information, the integrity of the pipeline or the condition of the
pipe is not a contributing factor. It is likely that the accident was caused by one or a
combination of the following:
a. Poor easement or crossing agreement
b. Insufficient or misrepresented As-built information
c. Construction oversight
d. Insufficient SOP or insufficient leak detection system or lack of communication
at the Gas operating company.
ANALYSIS OF THE INCIDENT
5. The available actions are based
on traditional hierarchy of hazard
control namely:
1. Elimination,
2. Substitution,
3. Engineering controls,
4. Administrative controls
5. PPE (or last line of defence).
AVAILABLE ACTIONS
6. Elimination
• As far as possible, eliminate sharing of same pipe corridor by multiple services.
Available Actions
Substitution
Keeping a central database of buried asset which is accurate and quick to locate, and share is crucial to
control such incidents.
a. 100% audit all available As-Built documentation for quality of pipeline information (such as
location, depth, MOC, connections type, asset type and weld detail)
b. Replace poor quality data with superior data using non-destructive methods on a central GIS
database
c. Record data which could not be replaced on central GIS database
Engineering controls
This action relies on replacing natural gas by another energy source which is not distributed by
pipelines to the consumers.
7. Administrative Controls
• Audit Management of Change process for working on shared corridor
• Reinforce Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) 4 Ps – plan, pothole, protect, Proceed and it should help
eliminate possible issues.
Available Actions cont.
This item is worth mentioning because speed of response is critical in managing a breach damage.
As per media report, the controller was not able to immediately determine which pipe to shut. This
arguably increased the risk of explosion. And if SOP states that the controller will shut down the
pipeline after getting a leak alarm, and controller is not able to shut down or determine which pipe
to shut down, it constitutes a potential finding.
Company's Standard Operating Procedure
8. RECOMMENDATION
Implement action item 1 wherever possible; encourage alternate energy source
such as solar and to use the lower order of precedence namely engineering,
administrative controls and the last line of defence on existing network
pipelines.
Finally create a database to measure the effectiveness of the recommendation
