Oil and gas on the valve technology
Although the valve product range involved in the development and delivery of oil and natural gas has remained relatively unchanged over the past century, valve manufacturers have been constantly updating valve technology to actively respond to changes in the oil and gas industry. If you want to stay ahead of the market or not to fall, valve manufacturers are constantly updated valve design, manufacture, service, sales technology and processes. The fact is that oil companies are demanding more and more from valve manufacturers: on the basis of providing reasonable prices, advanced valve manufacturers must be good at solving the problems faced by oil companies. Under more harsh working conditions and more stringent environmental requirements, Extend the performance of valve products to provide more service capabilities.
(1) metal seal The world market for the rapid growth of oil and gas demand, the development of crude oil footprint also traveled every corner of the world, extraction of crude oil equipment put forward new requirements. For example, ultra-deep well technology presents the challenge of ultra-low temperature and ultra-high pressure for the equipment. Extra-heavy crude oil is an option for profitability, especially when crude oil reaches $ 30 a barrel. High levels of asphaltenes and other impurities now make it difficult to transport and process crude oil. Normally, soft-sealed ball valves used in oil pipelines can not meet the requirements of working conditions. This requires valve manufacturers to develop metal-sealed ball valves and adapt to temperature and pressure changes even when transporting solid media (hydroxide, coke, etc.) To ensure absolute sealing. The metal seal technology benefits from the development of surface coating technology. Valve manufacturers are hoping to use this technology to stay ahead of the market and include spray technology in their development strategy, working with research institutes and universities to develop the next generation of "super-hard" coatings.
(2) Prevention of Explosion Decompression In 2002, the American Petroleum Institute Standard API 6D stipulates that valve products with design pressures higher than ASME Class 600 must be designed to prevent "explosion decompression." Explosion decompression refers to the rapid pressure drop in the valve, due to the role of high pressure penetration in the seal of the CO 2 due to the rapid reduction of the pressure drop, resulting in sealing the valve during the closure of the explosion and fracture, resulting in valve failure phenomenon. An oil company found the first explosion of a valve on a deep-sea platform to depressurize the valve. After the valve failed, the company had to stop working for a few weeks to replace the valve, resulting in heavy losses. Since then, the oil companies have asked the valve manufacturer to provide high-pressure valves must be equipped with anti-"explosion decompression" configuration. Soon, valve manufacturers responded quickly by developing "explosion-relief" seals and anti-explosion "decompression" valves to meet harsh environmental requirements.
(3) The rising crude oil price of sulfur-bearing crude oil has caused oil refiners to focus on sulfur-containing crude oil, make lucrative investments in the development of sulfur-bearing crude oil market, and also have price competitive advantages in long-term supply contracts. However, the sulfur-containing crude oil contains H2S and other corrosive media, posing new challenges to the corrosion resistance of the equipment. Valve manufacturers can supply ISO15156 approved materials as well as test (according to ISO15156) data to demonstrate the corrosion resistance and long life of the valve materials that end users place on the list of corrosion-resistant valve suppliers .
(4) Fugitive emissions ISO 15848 specifies the design of the valve's fugitive emissions. Manufacturers have redesigned the packing of ordinary valves and special valves in a sealed arrangement to meet the newer standards. However, the new standard is too general and the requirements are too strict. Therefore, many oil companies have also set their own emission standards. For example, many North American companies refer to the API 622 standard. Valve fugitive emissions standards to further improve the valve manufacturers, users, standards makers tripartite cooperation, learn from each other's experience, the three parties to work together to solve.
(5) Premature Wear and Equipment Fatigue To pursue economic benefits, many refineries are overloaded. The result is endless capacity expansion of production equipment and retrofit systems. Business expectations of equipment beyond the design of the original intention, which requires valve manufacturers take precautions, take the initiative to participate in the user's items
Work, to avoid the unreasonable production process Design on the valve reliability, life expectancy and safety of the adverse effects. For example, valves used in thermodynamic systems are prone to thermal fatigue and valve manufacturers with experience in industrial processes arrange valves to reduce the likelihood of problems.
(6) Preventive Maintenance Oil companies are required to arrange equipment maintenance intervals in order to ensure production. With the development of valve testing systems, electronic hardware and software, the preventive maintenance of valves has evolved from an intelligent concept to reality. A small number of valve manufacturers proficient in automation control provide data analysis systems to quantify valve operation and provide valve preventative maintenance time.
(7) Automatic implementation of the refinery process automation is the general trend, the intermediate control technology has been developed for a long period of time. Valve manufacturers to install automatic actuators on the valve in order to achieve automatic control of production requirements. Automatic actuator technology has been greatly developed. On the other hand, the manufacturer of the production execution agency also provides the user with the valve product installed with the implementing agency. As a result, the trend of implementing agencies and valves has challenged a single manufacturer, after all, users want to find a company to solve the problem more easily and avoid the phenomenon of buck.
(8) Pipeline Valves Natural gas pipeline engineering is a very large and potentially attractive market for valves. Monitoring of long distance pipelines is very important. Some companies have developed smart devices that users can use to probe pipelines. Such as "smart pig" technology. This robot can detect the
Wall thickness, or even corrosion point. However, the detection device has requirements on the pipeline diameter, so the diameter of the ball valve has become the long-distance pipeline company's first choice. On the other hand, the long-distance pipeline requires the valve wall thickness to be as thin as possible, and the valve material has high yield toughness and corrosion resistance so as to meet the requirements of pipeline expansion and contraction and regional environmental change. The most important point is that the manager of the long-distance pipeline must purchase the valve life must be longer than the life of the pipeline itself.
