Interview of Henry Martinez - 4/3/01

Transcription

1 Interview of Henry Martinez - 4/3/01

2 I.---, BEFORE THE NTIONL TRNSPORTTION SFETY BORD 1 FIELD INTERVIEWS 1 1 EL PS0 NTURL GS COMPNY ) NO. DC00-MP00 1 Kayser Center I 1st Floor Conference Room 0 N. Stanton El Paso, Texas Tuesday, pril 3, 01 ij The interview began at 1: p.m. Interview of: PPERNCES : F. HENRY MRTINEZ On behalf of the Witness: SNFORD M. SUNDERS, JR., ES. kin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. 33 New Hampshire venue, N.W., Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 036 () BENNIE BRNES Manager, West Pipeline Corrosion Services El Paso Corp. 51 E. th Street, Suite 80 Tucson, rizona 857 (5) 663-4

3 PPERNCES : (cont. On behalf of the NTSB: RVIND M. CHHTRE CLIFF ZIMMERMN ccident Investigators National Transportation Safety Board Office of Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 40 L'Enfant Plaza East, S.W. Washington, D.C. 54 () On behalf of the U.S. DOT: RICHRD J. LOPEZ, Sr. Engineer GUSTIN LOPEZ, Engineer U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Pipeline Safety Research and Special Programs dministration LaBranch, Suite 0 Houston, Texas (7) 7-356

4 3 WITNESSES : EXMINTION F. HENRY MRTINEZ 4 Executive Court Reporters, InC. '.

5 4 L: 7 8 MR. ZIMMERMN: I am Cliff Zimmerman with the National Transportation Safety Board. in charge of the accident that occurred at El Paso Natural Gas Company on ugust the th, 00. This interview is with Henry Martinez. BY MR. ZIMMERMN: - EXMINT I ON I am the investigator Henry, would you state your full name for us? Okay. My full name is F. Henry Martinez. My birth certificate name is actually Francisco Enrique Martinez but I go by F. Henry. business address? Okay, thank you. nd where can we reach you, your I'm moving out to the Railroad Drive Facility, 8645 Railroad Drive, El Paso, Texas 704, I believe it is. Okay. Henry, what's your position with El Paso at - this time? t this time I'm part- the West Pipeline Services Group. Okay. nd prior to that? Prior to that I was part of our Engineering Department. I was in project management. Okay. nd your job previous to your project management assignment? '.L +w

6 ou v I was part 0fW-e Engineering $c$wl Department I was part of design engineering for a while. 1 nd prior to that I was part of the MC group under Transmission Operations Engineering. Okay. Well, we sort of went through a few of them. I don't know how far back we are. Maybe what we should do is when did you start with the company at this point? 5.-. L'. I started in March of 0. Okay. nd your position then? I was a, came in as a metallurgical engineer with a group that was actually in the process of moving to a different department. I was part of what they called-,&he C+h~~\tiwp mj Metallurgy ai%34pcciz.?.?,r-. &YOUP How long were you in that group? I was there for maybe I want to say six months. ) I'm not exactly sure. Then we moved on to be part of the Engineering Department. Okay. nd in the Engineering Department your position was? I was there as a metallurgical/corrosion engineer. Okay. Did you ever have a title of corrosion engineer or what was it? principal engineer. No. My cards always said only senior engineer or

7 L;.. \ 1 Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your education? 3 Sure. nd you're talking about university or? 4 Yes. Yes. Oh, yes, just once you got out of high 5 school? 6 I got my B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from 6 7 the University of Texas at El Paso in Okay. Do you have-any other pipeline experience besides what you got here at El Paso? G No, not pipeline experience. But I've got oil and gas. I worked for Exxon for a while. you do? Okay. nd in that position what type of work did It was more petroleum engineering. I did some corrosion work for downhole tubulars. But I moved on to a drilling group for a while. had? Okay. What kind of pipeline training have you Well, my pipeline training has been&in-house and taking courses outside of the company also. Tell us a little bit about those courses. The ones outside the company? Yes. I'm a NCE member. nd I participated in some of the NCE schools: the CP theory and data interpretation, and %--w

8 ~ 1 I've itafte the CP design course. - 3,&G,- nd I've participated in other workshops with PCG, things of that nature. 4 Do you have a NCE rating? 5 No, I don't. 6 Okay. In your various positions with the company 7 we'd like to know more specifically the types of things that 8 you did that were related to corrosion control, both external, just give us an overview, and then internal. Okay. nd that's the one we want to get into a little deeper. \ Sure. When I started with El Paso Natural Gas I - L came in a+ +he engineer level. 4&&-I was providing technical 4+w support in the areas of metallurgy and corrosion control working with another gentleman that was here as a corrosion engineer. Who was that? That was Bob Young. Okay. Go ahead. nd I worked as part of this metallurgy consulting group or special projects group. lot of my work involved providing technical support to our operations folks. Whenever they had any questions about materials or corrosion issues I would help them out. nd most of my work focused 7

9 8 LJ i; on external corrosion, cathodic protection type issues and SUP+ O U ~ Ize,au&ha*/ pis+ MaTeme;C Now, we did work a little bit on internal Whevt e&& coatings. 3 ~ ~ W ~ J Z J *w- corrosion issues but then again that was only back- had our people up in Farmington, +&+is now the El Paso that would occasionally-- corrosion issues. Okay. nd specigically internal corrosion what did you work on that? 'I- T LII, -,There were a couple of questions that would come up. with the people up in Farmington was providing technical documentation. I was part of the PRCI Corrosion Committee and also participated in the GRI Corrosion TG. nd a lot k ~ o exempte v tacbhd z-~pwk t.ccldm of the materials that I would bring back I would- / furnish those to our people up in Farmington. we nd a lot of my involvement MR. ZIMMERMN: Okay. Before we move on to Ravi here for the next questioning I know you were introduced to just about everybody here but let's just go around the table and finish it off. Safety. THE WITNESS: Okay. MR. ZIMMERMN: Ravi? MR. CHHTRE: Ravi Chhatre, NTSB. MR. R. LOPEZ: Richard Lopez, Office of Pipeline.$&& 1..-

10 - b.. _.-< Lf Safety. MR.. LOPEZ: gustin Lopez, Office of Pipeline MR. BRNES: Bennie Barnes, El Paso Corporation. Strauss, Hauer & Feld, here as the personal representative for the witness. MR. ZIMMERMN: Ravi? BY MR. CHHTRE: - Okay. Henry, who was your supervisor then when you joined as a metallurgical engineer in Metallurgical and Special Projects Group? When I first came into the company there was no boss in the group that I because the gentleman that was over that group had moved on to be our director for South Region Engineering. That was Syl Nunez. How do you spell the name? It's S-Y-L, it's Sylvestre Nunez. Uh-huh. nd, yeah, Syl had moved on to director. How do you spell the last name? Nunez. It's N-U-N-E-. Okay. But I was working under pretty much the guidance of Blaine Metzger. nd then not soon after that I became part of Blaine's group. - - '.

11 kj Okay. So Blaine Metzger was my boss when I was part of the Metallurgy Corrosion Group? Spell that for me, please, again? Blaine's name? Uh-huh. Blaine is B-L--I-N-E. Okay. Metzger, M-E-T--G-E-R. nd is Mr. Metzger still with El Paso? Yes, sir. nd what's his, do you know his current title? Operations Director. He is the Director over our Midland Division, You also mentioned the name of Bobby Young being your supervisor when you went to -- Well, he wasn't my supervisor. I uf worked with Bob, O& ~ r O ~ ~ W cofitba ';ss3a5 Okay. corrosion engineer. Okay. Bob was back then designated as the corporate So I kind of worked a little bit with Bob. nd is Mr. Young still with the company? No, he's not. He retired in. Executive Court Reporters, InC.

12 Okay. nd who took over his position? 'OYpvut e Really they did not replace the)corrosion engineer posi4tm* 4-J * -spa+ Bee"? I & functioned as $"etallurgyfcorrosion engineer. "b* * Okay. nd, again, it was more providing technical support in the areas of materials, corrosion, metallurgy. So I don't think they replaced him. corrosion engineer per se. They didn't name a CCVpokdte nd so you acted as metallurgical/corrosion engineer for the El Paso Gas, for all or for a certain region? Well, it was basically overall. It's supporting 4 evp.*ws w d L e engineering. J" b& work involved providing technical support to our project also operations. Okay. The other name that was mentioned, and maybe you can clarify something for me here, and it was, oh, let me see, Mr. Ferguson, Jim Ferguson. Jim Ferguson. Did you have a chance to work with him? Yes, I did. s a metallurgical engineer or a? s both. I mean these guys if they had any questions about pipe materials, you know, fittings, anything - -

13 that had to do with the pipeline or if they had corrosion type questions I would work with them. 3 Mr. Ferguson's name I thought was mentioned as a 4 corrosion person also? 5 6 He was a corrosion superintendent. Okay. So as a corrosion superintendent did you 7 work with him or work under him? a I worked with him. He was part of the same group or part of the -- yeah, part of the same group as with Blaine. Blaine had the corrosion superintendents under him. Okay. nd then he had engineers under his group. nd I was working as one of those engineers. I -- So you -- Sorry. I'm sorry. ' I was just going to say I provided technical support to the corrosion superintendents. So there were three superintendents that I basically worked with. So as a corrosion superintendent do you know what Mr. Ferguson's responsibilities were compared to yours? Well, he was over the corrosion technicians and the people out in the field. Services. Okay. What is your current title now? I'm a principal engineer for West Pipeline -.- '.

14 1 b nd as with that title what are your responsibilities? Well, it's a new job ec I '*, part of my i + responsibilities are pipeline integrit3 and also I would imagine working with our corrosion people even though they're designated as a separate services group. Okay. Is the Pipeline Integrity a newly created organization or? organization. When we were part of the Metallurgy Corrosion Control Grou -we focused on pipeline Integrity work W V - c second? b U L MR. CHHTRE: Can we go off the record for a (Discussion off the record.) BY MR. CHHTRE: Now, as a corrosion metallurgical engineer, from this point on my questions are going to be strictly pre- accident era. Okay. nd if I have a post-accident question then I will specify that. But if I don't mention anything it's pre- accident. nd I mainly focusing on lines 03, and I'm sorry, 00. The 01 is gone. 00. nd,

15 F-.L again, mainly the internal corrosion that I'm looking at. I will jump to the other lines to draw information. nd I will start by line 00. There was a rupture, explosion and subsequent fire circa 6; is that correct? I think that's correct. re you familiar with that? Yes, I am. Were you involved with that? I was directly involved -- indirectly involved, I'm sorry. In '6 I was part of Design Engineering. Okay Under our engineering department but I still provided-technical support in the corrosion and metallurgy area. There was another engineer that covered that failure analysis report. But I did review that report and I provided assistance in running the R strength calculations. Okay. nd who that engineer will be? That's Wayne Ritchie. Okay. Were you actually at the scene? No, I was not. Did you have a chance to look at the pipe when it was brought back to the facility? When it was here at the Metallurgy Lab I did look - - '.

16 LJ $-. 1 at the pieces that came back in. Okay. So did you look at the corrosion, internal corrosion damage? report. - Correct. nd can you describe that to me? - -4a.t was.* it vnii.- "-1- knnw. iiint T trim a e- WPS so all I looked atthat piece that had,* 1.I t- 44- h- -Lu rr+- " ** internal corrosion pitting. nd I wfiyfla think B&&e took that and characterized the depths of those 5;anl\e o&t%%e cow@s?* pits. But, -6, it wasn'ton the ID of the pipe. In your R strength calculations what was your finding at that time, do you recall? Well, what we did is we took, and I don't recall exactly, but I think we took some areas and ran some calculations to see how it would compare - W -L-e 1- to I_ " - and the MOP. the pressure when it ruptured nd I think based on our calculations we showed that there were certain areas that would have failed R strength 4ype calculations. T* nd you ran the calculations you said? Correct...-

17 Have you had a chance to look at the final report that was issued? Yes. ny comments on the findings on that? I mean no, as far as -- I mean I've read the report. I reviewed it for Wayne. But I mean I don't have any additional comments. Based on that report and you at that time you said you were in engineering design functions? Correct. In that capacity did you have, it was part of your job function to make recommendations based on that investigation or that will be outside your responsibilities? Is that the report itself you're talking about? No. Conclusions from that report in terms of preventing future failures, safety recommendations. Not in my job function. I mean what we would do in a failure analysis report is we would make recommendations within Fhat report. I looked wd VeVrWad at that reportb- the recommendations. &+&s- I 4- v. C t O ~ d a 4 t ~ - bask&? concurred with m. Be' ts me, tw zrry these C'Zt, e r45yonsibw Cev. cawyh$ eo& *c, I was not i.-. tlt type c? ww~:tlmo Okay. Now going back to-03 rupture that happened recently, did you have a chance to look at that? You're talking about Carlsbad? 1RkM. ycdvyi~

18 #'- b 1 Carlsbad, No, I have not. Okay. re you involved in any way in that investigation efforts on El Paso's behalf? When that happened, and you mentioned the pre- rupture, I mean I was already part of project management. So my, my involvement was very, very limited. Okay. Other than just being aware of it that it happened. Were you involved in any pigging operattons, anything in that at all? fu /- - operations. I was not involved with the actual pigging But one thing I did support was going out and doing the dig sites. When they came back and ran the smart pigs -- I'm sorry, I was talking about another rupture, nrrt p p Okay. There were also mentioned this morning that there was some pitting found in line -- I want to make sure I give the numbers correct here and 0. That goes back to 5-6, something in that period. re you familiar with that? No./ So when Mr. Young retired were the responsibilities transferred to you as the corrosion person

19 /--> L; 1 or do you know what happened? e/ en Bob Young was here he+ c. e! b e oo~p-te 3 Y as,if corrosion engineer. But ;% c s i + 4 he mainly functioned as a coating expert. 5 Okay. 6 7 the corrosion superintendents. nd I, I also functioned as, a nd when Bob Young retired under MC we relied on again, corrosion engineer. But, no, I was not designated as the corporate corrosion engineer, I just functioned as my title was Senior Engineer but I concentrated in metallurgy and corrosion control. In your job function to your full different responsibilities of job titles were you involved in internal - corrosion? when there involved with a couple of investigations where I looked at some of the information that operations provided and made some recommendations. Do you recall which ones are those? It was gathering lines. We were looking at a gathering line in the Midland-Odessa area, the 3000 series lines. Okay..'

20 ;= 1 I can't recall those line numbers exactly. Well, gathering lines. nd my next question is were you involved in any transmission lines? wi4fl liner I was involved #I transmission$. But, again, oh* 4%- w/?u+qmwl\ awos;'ah, t~afis~~s~m. 1iaS. No. Okay. Now, with your current responsibilities do you get involved with corrosion-at all? I would say I am going to get involved. Right now I'm getting involved with pigging, with our pigging program. But then again there's a corrosion part of pipeline services. nd I would imagine that I would provide technical support to our corrosion services people if they need it. capacity? Now, when you say you will be involved, in what gain, I think that's -- I don't, I don't know if that's defined yet. Okay. In your tenure as metallurgical corrosion responsibilities have you heard any internal corrosion problems with different pipelines? Now I'm not restricting to 03,. or -- But I mean you're talking about just our pipelines Yeah, only El Paso's pipeline.

21 ur No, not really. On our transmission lines -- No. -- no. Other than, you know, when we had that Roswell rupture. nd that's it. Were you aware of any corrosion monitoring program on internal corrosion again with El Paso? I was aware, I was aware of the corrosion monitoring programs they-had up in Farmington for the gathering lines. I know that was a lot more of an active program where I know they collected iron counts. pig their lines, clean their lines. nd I think they also checked for MIC, things of that nature. They would I know that in the Waha area we had, because W i b we had gathering lines that would transport HS,C0 MR. CHHTRE: Thank you much. That's all for me. MR. R. LOPEZ: I don't have any questions. MR. ZIMMERMN: Bennie? MR. BRNES: I don't have any. MR. ZIMMERMN: Well, unless you thought of one we Ch4@d 4 d Y i vr.teyula~ COW5 I Ut% pev ooy 0Z;M e v ~ md V~C since in the last minute here, Ravi, I think we're ready to W6bi&4v4 go. MR. CHHTRE: No, I'm fine. MR. ZIMMERMN: Okay, thank you. THE WITNESS: Okay. Executive Court Reporters, InC. ilks qu&y '.

22 1 for coming by. MR. ZIMMERMN: ppreciate your help. Thank you nd that ends this interview. Thank you. concluded.) (Whereupon, at 1:3 p-m., the interview was 7 8

23 Lf 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICTE 3 CSE TITLE: Field Interviews: El Paso Natural Gas Company; 4 Witness: F. Henry Martinez DOCKET NO: NO. DCOO-MPOOg HERING DTE: pril 3, 01 LOCTION: El Paso, Texas 8 \J I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are contained fully and accurately on the tapes and notes reported by me at the interviews in the above case before the National Transportation Safety Board, and that this is a complete and accurate transcript of the testimony included herein as prepared by me. Date: pril 7, 01 Rayon% M. Vetter Official Reporter on behalf of Executive Court Reporters