In China's shale gas exploration and development, skid-mounted equipment is typically used due to its ease of disassembly, transportation, and reassembly. This equipment is often operated in high-pressure and high-temperature environments. As a result, faults are more likely to occur. To prevent production accidents and eliminate safety hazards, regular monitoring and fault diagnosis of skid-mounted gathering and transportation equipment are essential. Only relatively independent and discrete fault information is typically provided by conventional fault diagnosis methods. The relationships between faults are not uncovered. In response, a two-stage association analysis technique was proposed to analyze fault data from shale gas gathering and transportation skid-mounted equipment. The relationships between faults and defect type distributions were identified, providing valuable guidance for equipment maintenance and process optimization. It has been demonstrated through experiments on real data that the method proposed accurately identifies the relationships between defect locations and the distribution of defect types in skid-mounted equipment. A new solution is provided for the preventive detection and optimized design of gathering and transportation skid-mounted systems.