Natural gas pipeline ready to flow

By Libby Cluett

Lone Star News Group

GARNER — Just a few more pipe joints and Falcon Gas Storage Company’s new, 60-mile natural gas pipeline will be ready to flow.

For a number of property owners east of State Highway 113 - running through Garner, Cool, Millsap and Brock — the ground was torn up but money is coming in.

The project is Houston-based Falcon Gas Storage Company’s new 24-inch diameter Worsham-Steed natural gas pipeline. The pipeline runs 60 miles from Falcon Gas’ new Worsham-Steed Gas Storage plant in Jack County, through western Parker County, parallel to State Highway 113 and ends at the intersection of two major 36-inch interstate transmission lines located in Tolar.

Contractors are busy working overtime to finish the tri-county gas pipeline that was delayed by rains this spring and in July. Falcon’s Vice President of Engineering and Construction Lowell Thronson said that 99 percent of the pipe is welded together and in the ground.

According to Thronson, one of the final sections is being bored under U.S. Highway 180 in Cool, using a process of horizontal drilling - like putting a drilling rig over on its side.

The pipeline crosses roads and lots of property and in some areas it even drops under stock tanks, according to a Millsap landowner.

Thronson said that they bored it under 32 road crossings, including Interstate 20, where the pipeline drops to approximately 30 feet below the roadway. He said that they bored nearly 40 feet under the Brazos River (between Lazy Bend and Dennis).

Boring allows Falcon to run the pipeline under thoroughfares like roads and railroad crossings without disturbing traffic.

What remains to be done for most of the stretch of pipeline is to put the soil back, reseed the surface and “restore the right-of-way to the same or better than it was.”

“We like to take care of the landowners. We’ve worked with 160 landowners across this [project] and worked very favorably with everybody,” Thronson said.

Garner resident Jimmy Maddux is one of the latest residents whose land has been overtaken and devoured by earth-moving equipment. He has a temporary canyon running across his property and had to move his broodmares and young racing prospects off their pasture while contractors “bored all the dirt out in a 15- to 18-feet deep ditch,” he said.

“They had to bore under the road and the rail-to-trail,” he said.

Maddux noted that landowners, whether they wanted it or not, “cannot stop them from crossing [with a pipeline because of] the power of eminent domain.”

“It was gonna go through my front yard,” said Maddux of the line that originally was planned to cross 45 feet in front of his Garner home.

“They were fair about it. I said, ‘I don’t want to live that close,’” he said, telling the companies involved that he wanted a new house out of it.

“They called back in two to three hours and told me it [will be] 400-500 feet behind your house,” he added.

Maddux reported that they have the pipeline welded together and laid into the hole and need to back fill the canyon, blade it and put his fences back.

As the owner of Garner Pipe Company, Maddux knows pipes and calls this 24-inch pipeline “a good pipe [at] about one-quarter-wall thick or thicker.”

“My concern was having something sticking up out of the ground that I could forget about when mowing. This is deep enough,” he said, adding that if he digs a tank in the future it will be a concern for him.

Safety features

For this reason, Thronson said they installed the pipeline deeper than required by the State Railroad Commission and federal government.

He said that it will be marked at every fence line, road crossing and such.

The pipeline is also recorded with the “Dig Test” system, Thronson said. So when landowners plan to dig a tank or excavate, they will check the system first.

“For safety, we have to maintain that right-of-way — keep it mowed and can’t let it get overgrown with trees,” said Thronson who personally visited landowners before and during the pipeline installation process.

The line is a high-pressure transmission line that has a maximum allowable operating pressure of 1,200 pounds.

On March 12, a high-pressure transmission line exploded north of Weatherford when a third-party excavation equipment operator laying pipeline near the community of Dicey, accidentally struck an existing high-pressure transmission line owned by ConocoPhillips.

According to Thronson, Falcon’s line is bored deeper than state and federal safety requirements for added safety. They bored their line even deeper where it intersects gas lines owned by Atmos, Devon and Enbridge near Garner, Cool and Millsap.

“It’s all designed and built to the latest federal and state design and operation guidelines,” said Thronson. “In most cases, we actually exceed those.”

The line is made of “high-yield steel pipe made to American Petroleum Industry 5-L standard” and has an extra coating for corrosion, according to Thronson. Under roads, it has extra thickness.

Also, Thronson explained that every weld in the “entire circumference” of the pipe is radiographed and examined by a certified welding inspector, “like a radiologist for a pipe.”

As the pipeline is welded together, it is examined several times by people, including a third-party radiography crew. The weld is then verified by an inspector and recorded by the exact location of weld and the name and identification of the welder. Thronson said this becomes part of the permanent record of the pipeline.

Thronson said they took additional efforts to site the pipeline to avoid populated areas.

“We’ve taken development into consideration by either totally avoiding it - which we tried - or,” Thronson explained, “by designing the pipe, in areas of expected growth, to a higher safety factor than required by the office of pipeline safety.”

Expected to be complete by Sept. 1, the pipeline was delayed by the rains.

“We shut down during the rain,” said Thronson. After the rainy spell, he said they had to supplement workers.

“At one time, there were 150 people working on the pipeline, including 16 road boring crews and four separate pipeline contractors,” he said.

Thronson said the cost of pipeline and the expanded storage facility in Jack County is estimated at $250,000,000. It will expand Falcon’s gas storage capacity and their “core business” of supplying customers with pipeline quality natural gas - the end product many homeowners rely upon for heating and cooking.

“It’s all because of our demand in natural gas,” said Thronson whose father once warned him there was no future in the oil and gas industry.