El Paso Natural Gas has been subpoenaed by a New Mexico grand jury to turn over documents in connection with the fiery blast on its South Mainline system that killed 12 members of two extended families in August 2000, the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in documents filed Thursday.

“It’s not surprising that we would get a subpoena for documents because there was a loss of life,” said El Paso spokeswoman Norma Dunn. “We do not believe this was an expression of dissatisfaction with our cooperation” with federal authorities who investigated the rupture, she noted, adding that El Paso has worked closely with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials for more than two years.

The El Paso Corp. pipeline received the subpoena on Nov. 1, and intends to “cooperate fully” with the request for documents, the company said in its third quarter 10-Q filing submitted to the SEC.

Twelve victims were killed while they were fishing and camping alongside the Pecos River near Carlsbad, NM, the site of the rupture and explosion on El Paso’s South Mainline system on Aug. 19, 2000. They were consumed in a blast and fireball that ripped open a 113-foot-long and 51-foot-deep trench, and left a mass of twisted metal (see Daily GPI, Aug. 22, 2000).

The NTSB still is investigating the cause of the fatal explosion and may release its final findings before the end of the year. In late June, the NTSB issued a series of factual reports that appeared to confirm federal investigators’ initial suspicions of substantial internal corrosion as the cause. It found “severe corrosion damage” on the bottom of the interior of the 1950s-vintage pipeline near the explosion site (see Daily GPI, June 21).

In June 2001, the Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) cited El Paso for several “probable violations” of the federal pipeline safety regulations in connection with the blast, and proposed a record fine of $2.5 million. El Paso has disputed the agency’s claims.

El Paso was hit with a number of multi-million-dollar personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits in the wake of the explosion. “All but one of these suits have been settled. The settlement payments have been fully covered by insurance,” it said in the SEC filing.

The pipeline also said it has agreed to contribute $10 million to a “charitable foundation as a memorial to the families involved.”

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