An investigation was made into the premature failure of a gas-header at the Rocky Mountain Oilfield
Testing Center (RMOTC) natural gas production facility. A wide variety of possible failure mechanisms
were considered: design of the header, deviation from normal pipe alloy composition, physical
orientation of the header, gas composition and flow rate, type of corrosion, protectiveness of the interior
oxide film, time of wetness, and erosion-corrosion. The failed header was examined using
metallographic techniques, scanning electron microscopy, and microanalysis. A comparison of the
failure site and an analogous site that had not failed, but exhibited similar metal thinning was also
performed. From these studies it was concluded that failure resulted from erosion-corrosion, and that
design elements of the header and orientation with respect to gas flow contributed to the mass loss at the
failure point.