I have worked in the Natural Gas Compression (Transmission) business for many years. I know that there are many new controls being set on compressors to integrate them into the system, but compressed gas is mainly determined by pressure, basically gas flows to points in the system where the pressure is needed. If individual compressors fail due to microprocessors it is fairly easy to bypass that mechanism and get it back on line.

Am I missing anything here? At best I see interruptions in the US Gas Distribution system but nothing more than 2 to 3 weeks in most areas. Definitely nothing as Chaotic as can happen with Electric distribution. Your thoughts on this matter would be most appreciated.

Murray Http://www.powerpac.com/generator.html

-- Anonymous, October 13, 1998

Answers

We just lost most of Florida south of Tallhassee due to a lightening stike in a compressor station. Gas supply was restricted for 2-3 days for most of the state. This resulted in gas fired generation shutting down, loss of hot water heating, loss of cooking capability etc.

2-3 weeks would be a major impact.

Will all of your compressor stations be manned?

-- Anonymous, October 14, 1998

I guess 2 to 3 weeks sounds like a little bit of time however 2 or 3 weeks at 0 to 20 degrees or even 1 week could be pretty bad for many people who have no other way to heat there homes. Another problem is if there is no heat a lot of homes could have major problems ( pipes could freeze, then defrost and major water damage could occur). Sounds like this could be a very big problem! Dave

-- Anonymous, October 14, 1998

I find it curious that the gas line went down due to a lightning strike. At the transmission line I am working for, each and every compressor station can be bypassed (and is) if it falls off-line.

We are also planning on having all stations manned on the major roll over dates, to insure that any problems that show up are fixed in as short a time as possible. An outage of several hours for a compressor station has little effect on a pipeline in our system, just as the loss of a couple of compressors doesn't have too serious an effect, unless they are all in the same region.

We are also working on contingency plans and testing for all those things we can think of, even the more bizarre cases.

-- Anonymous, October 15, 1998

I agree with John.. the problem in Florida with the lightening must have affected the Pipeline more so than a compressor etc. Standard procedure is that each compressor is separately grounded.

I was talking with a friend that works for the local utility, he feels that locally most of our electricity comes from gas powered generation plants and they do not expect much problem with supply, but the concern he has is the need to redirect power to other areas, causing roaming brown outs until other areas are properly functional again.

Food for thought

HTTP://www.powerpac.com

-- Anonymous, October 15, 1998

Thanks you all for your comments! I have tried to obtain answers from my natural gas supplier, "how might the distribution of natural gas be affected, and what are they doing to prepare". No response what so ever, ofcourse. Living here in Minnesota, I will be making alternative plans for heat, just in case.

Thanks all (I do feel beter knowing it can by manually corrected in a short time)

Scott

-- Anonymous, October 25, 1998

The lightening strike caused an explosion and fire that disabled the compressor station. Crews had to work around the clock for three days to build 800 feet of bypass piping for the 36", 30" and 24" lines that were destroyed. Commercial users were ordered to shut down. Other users operated off of linepack. The post mortem review of the incident is still pending.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1998