Faulty installation of new equipment by a contractor caused the gas outage that hit 562 CenterPoint customers earlier this week in Shakopee, the utility said Thursday.

The outage started Monday evening, and service wasn't fully restored until Tuesday evening. The outage stemmed from a problem at a pressure regulator station in Shakopee, the utility said earlier this week.

On Thursday, CenterPoint spokesman Ross Corson said an incomplete installation of a regulator station and an associated pipeline ultimately caused the outage. "It was a one-time construction error," he said.

The regulator station, which is above ground, steps down pressure from a high-pressure gas pipeline to a lower-pressure distribution line. As abnormally cold temperatures descended Monday, heating demand increased and CenterPoint lost pipeline pressure in Shakopee.

CenterPoint declined to identify the contractor. The utility is the state's largest gas provider and has 870,000 customers.

The new regulator station was built last summer after the city of Shakopee asked CenterPoint to move an existing station because of a public-works project, Corson said. The fault didn't become apparent until gas demand surged as the mercury dropped to a low of 8 degrees Monday in the Twin Cities.

CenterPoint said it fixed the pressure regulation problem by 5 a.m. Tuesday. But after the repair, CenterPoint employees had to go into every house and business to restore gas service, a common safety practice in the industry.

Service was gradually restored, with all but 17 customers receiving gas by 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003