Planned pipeline work sparks flames

Natural gas station will remain closed

A brief fire at a natural gas compressor station in Butler County on Wednesday has temporarily shut down the facility, according to its owner, Texasbased Energy Transfer.

The fire occurred when gas being vented during a routine pigging operation sparked.

Pigging means running instruments inside a pipeline to clean or inspect it. It is a regular maintenance task.

Energy Transfer notified the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection about the incident, which happened around 9 a.m., according to DEP spokesman Tom Decker.

There were no injuries, but residents near the facility in Parker Township heard a loud noise, and some felt their houses shake, which Energy Transfer spokeswoman Lisa Coleman said was caused by a reverberation in the pipeline.

The DEP wasn’t called to the scene, but Mr. Decker said the agency is reviewing the incident and will conduct an inspection to assess if Energy Transfer followed the “specific operating and malfunction response requirements” of its permit.

“Only on-site impacts to vegetation and equipment caused by the fire are known by the agency at this time,” Mr. Decker said.

Compressor stations are used to pressurize gas collected from wells so that it can move through pipelines at the right speed and pressure.

The Galaxy facility does not have a pattern of violations with the DEP.

The plant is part of Energy Transfer’s Revolution system and feeds gas into the Revolution Pipeline, a link between wells in Butler, Beaver, Allegheny and Washington counties and the Revolution cryogenic gas processing plant in Washington.

A portion of that pipeline slid down a hill in September 2018 and exploded behind a row of homes in Center Township, Beaver County. Energy Transfer was fined more than $30 million for failing to prevent the damage. The pipeline was finally reactivated early this year.

Ms. Coleman said the company does not have a timeline for restarting the Galaxy compressor station yet.