Deadly Gas Explosions Near Boston Put Focus on Pipe Safety
Federal investigators were dispatched to three towns just outside Boston after dozens of explosions and fires along NiSource Inc.’s natural gas network left at least one person dead and 13 injured and displaced over 8,000 customers. Massachusetts State Police reported 39 incidents on the network in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover on Thursday. The blasts appear to be pipeline explosions, the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday in a briefing. Shares of NiSource plunged as much as 11 percent to $25.03 at 10:22 a.m. in New York, the biggest intraday drop since November 2008.
NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt told reporters in Washington the agency sent a “go-team” of investigators that will arrive in the affected area at about noon local time to begin what he said is likely to be a long inquiry. “Certainly things we will be looking at will be the design of the pipeline system, any maintenance or upgrades that may have been done or in the process of being done on the pipeline, the integrity management system of the pipeline operator,” he said. “This will be a multi-disciplinary investigation, we’ll be looking at a number of things.”
Pipeline work before the explosions creates “a higher potential for a financial impact to the utility,” CreditSights Inc. analysts Nick Moglia and Andy DeVries said in a note to clients Friday. “Unlike other gas utility explosions that unfortunately occur every few years, this one appears to have been caused by the utility working on the gas lines immediately before the explosions occurred,” the analysts said. That could point to a “higher potential for gross negligence rather than just a corroded pipe.” Ken Stammen, a NiSource spokesman, said in an email he could not confirm the details cited in the analyst note.
Leonel Rondon, an 18-year-old Lawrence resident, died after a house explosion sent a chimney crashing into his car, the Associated Press reported. Thirteen people were received at Lawrence General Hospital for injuries related to the explosions from smoke inhalation to blast trauma, according to the hospital’s Facebook page. One critical patient was transported to a Boston trauma center.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2018/09/14/501346.htm