Category: News

Traditionally within LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) plants, there are ‘cold service’ applications and cryogenic. Cold service is typically between -29degC (-20degF) and -50degC (-58degF). Valving for cold service do not require cryogenic bonnet extensions, however, they often require smaller extensions to allow for the application of lagging. Lagging types and thicknesses vary from project to project, and can be up to 50mm thick.

The reason for using a bonnet extension with lagged valves is to move the top of the bonnet outside the lagging. Should the valve ever develop a gland leak, the produced fluid will not be trapped within the lagging and cause corrosion issues.

• Fugitive Emission Leak Rate B
• 3rd Party Witnessed and Approved Qualification
• Qualified Temperature Range -50°C to Ambient operable
• Qualified in MESC SPE 77/300 Feb 2021
• Qualified Pressure Class Range: 150:300:600: 900:1500:2500

Valves used on cold service are required to be operable at -50degC, that is, be able to be opened and closed and maintain leak tightness through the gland and across the seat at the valve design pressure.

Oliver Valves Limited Slimline monoflange block & bleed and double block & bleed assemblies, utilise an outside screw and yoke needle valve primary isolate and an inside screw and yoke type needle valves for a second isolate and bleed valve. For cold service applications, these can be supplied with extended bonnets. To validate the two types of needle valves with extended bonnets, Oliver have utilised the rigorous testing requirements called for within the Shell specification 77/300. Unlike some specifications which only deal with purely the ability of the gland seal to perform at the low temperatures, the Shell specification reviews both the gland seal and the seat seal.

Cheshire based Oliver Valvetek Ltd is to be recognised with a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise for its excellence in international trade.

Established in 1994, Oliver Valvetek is a world leading manufacturer of subsea valve technology, predominantly for the oil and gas industry. Working with some of the most advanced deep-sea oil and gas extraction infrastructure manufacturers, the company produces an ever-expanding range of valves and related products that are vital components in the extraction of oil and gas.

More recently Oliver Valvetek has also found new opportunities for its technology to be used for CO₂ injection into depleted oil & gas wells as part of a growing demand for carbon capture and storage applications, delivering the decarbonisation of industrial emitters.

Now a second time winner of the Queen’s award for Enterprise earning recognition by achieving consistent growth in its international sales for three consecutive years. With more than 67% of the company’s entire order book being for export sales, Oliver Valvetek boasts a truly international reputation for innovation, customer service, quality and reliability.

The rigorous Quality Control and Quality Assurance systems and advanced manufacturing techniques needed to produce valves that can operate at depths of up to 3,000m, at up to 20,000psi, for more than a quarter of a century, in some of the most aggressive environments in the world is “run of the mill” for the 77 staff, including 9 engineers and 38 valve technicians, at the Knutsford headquarters.

Oliver Valvetek has over 140,000 valves deployed subsea, all designed in its dedicated Engineering facilities located in Knutsford and Glenrothes, Scotland. Highly trained Sales Engineers, Quality Assurance/Control teams and Customer Care teams support a number of global customer manufacturing hubs which service a truly international customer base spanning over 55 countries.

Utilising Oliver’s state of the art research and development facilities, which include a deep-water hyperbaric chamber, high pressure with high and low temperature environmental testing capability, Oliver Valvetek is able to continually innovate whilst ensuring extreme levels of reliability and meeting ever more stringent customer specifications. This has made Oliver Valvetek the first choice for many of the world’s leading oil and gas operators, utilising its in-house testing facilities to replicate actual “real world” operating conditions; just one of the many ways in which Oliver Valvetek partners with its customers to ensure the best possible outcome for even the most challenging applications.

Founder and Chairman, Michael Oliver is rightfully extremely proud of this achievement commenting, “To win the prestigious Queen’s award is a great business achievement and of immense personal pride to me. This has only been made possible by the extraordinary talent pool of people we employ in Cheshire and from the surrounding area. Our people are the jewel in the crown – it’s with their enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work that drive’s our global success and I’m extremely proud of the UK engineering excellence we’re delivering to the Global Oil and Gas industry of today and how we’re significantly investing in the energy demands of tomorrow with technological research and development in Hydrogen and Carbon capture…

…This is an exciting and transformational time for Oliver Valvetek and the global energy sector, and it excites me to see our new generation of engineers involved and learning from industry experts working at our facilities in Knutsford, to continue providing first-class solutions to the world’s energy needs in more environmental and sustainable ways. For the business to be crowned with such a royal award for the second time demonstrates that the future of Oliver Valvetek has never looked as strong as it does today”

The Fife LNG plant at Mossmorran, operated by SHELL, can provide a challenging environment for any high-pressure valve, but when a need arose for a number of ANSI class 300 DBB valves with a high operating temperature range, few manufacturers could meet the requirements.

The requirement for ANSI 300 class, 2” DBB valves suitable for a temperature range from -50°C up to +350°C would force the designers at Oliver Twinsafe to completely rethink the sealing technology used in their double block and bleed ball valves.

An additional layer of complexity, on top of this already challenging application, came with the requirement to meet the demanding MESC 77/300 design validation test that includes fugitive emission testing

The actual ball sealing was readily achieved as Oliver Twinsafe already manufactures a wide range of metal seated valves, dispensing with any elastomeric seals completely. But even here special attention was needed in relation to the ball and seat materials, especially the tungsten carbide coating required to ensure long service life. For zero and low through seat leakage requirements, such as this application, porosity control of the Tungsten Carbide coating is of paramount importance. Other sealing sites throughout the valve would prove more challenging, especially the dynamic sealing requirements for the operating stem used to rotate the ball.

Industry standard stem seals, for more challenging applications usually made from Graphite, PTFE or PEEK, see a rapid degradation in their mechanical and physical properties at temperatures above 180°C. Searching for seals that can function across the required temperature range, Oliver’s R&D team turned to one of the world’s leading elastomer manufacturers who suggested a high-performance specialist polymer solution usually associated with jet engine technology.

Although now armed with a suitable material, turning this into an effect seal still remained elusive. The Oliver Twinsafe designers and R&D team worked through many traditional configurations, with limited success; the only answer was to design a completely new stem seal arrangement in house.

The decades of knowhow in the Oliver team and a rigorous testing led development process, eventually came up with, a now patented, stem seal design that delivered fugitive emission leak rate B across the full temperature range required also passing the MESC 77/300 design validation test.

A combination of experience, innovative design, class leading R&D, and the drive to meet the most challenging applications makes Oliver Twinsafe one of the world’s leading valve manufacturers.

For further information contact Rob Porter at rporter@valves.co.uk or simply call us on +44 1565 632636. Or visit us at https://www.valves.co.uk/twinsafe/

Six years ago Oliver Valvetek changed its method of cleanliness inspection of hydraulic actuators and has not looked back.

Flush cleaning of actuators involves passing clean hydraulic fluid through an actuator at a sufficient flow rate to ensure turbulent flow is achieved.  Turbulent flow is when the Reynolds number exceeds 4000, the Reynolds number is calculated using the flow and the physical properties of the hydraulic fluid.

Originally during flushing of gate valve actuators with hydraulic fluid, in-line particle analysers were used to monitor the number and size of particles against a the NAS 1638 standard.  However, the analysers were poor at differentiating air bubbles and could give no indication as to the type of particles.

The NAS standard was superseded by ISO 4406 and SAE AS 4059F all of which clearly list the maximum contamination limits for cumulative particle counts.

For comparison and understanding of particle sizes, the analysis process and acceptable limits of SAE AS 4059F look at particulates in the process which are approximately 1/10^th of the thickness of a human hair or 6um and bigger !!

In 2015, Oliver changed from in-line analysers to the far more sensitive optical analyser method.  The Pamas Fast Patch 2 Go system was chosen and provides the level of detail needed to ensure the cleanliness levels called for by our customers is met.  Since its installation over 6000 patches have been analysed.

The Customer was using a combination of several valves and fittings to achieve the hook-up as per below picture on a Christmas tree. Oliver’s Middle East Sales Team worked hard with the End User, Christmas Tree Manufacturer, Integrator and in house Engineering to provide a value engineered product over a period of several months. Design reviews included Orientation of Valve Handles, ports, Pressure gauges and Clash Analysis of valves, handles and Pressure Gauges in a very confined space and of course weight reductions needed by the client.

This finally ended up in a Bespoke designed Double Block and Bleed with extra Test Port to give a much smaller, safer installation, avoiding extra leak paths, significant reduction in Weight (over 50%) thus reducing cost and eliminating vibrations and frequent replacements.

The complete supply is in 6Mo material, 10,000 psi rated with Handle Locking, Anti tamper vent facility, maintaining the minimum bore of 5mm. Supplied with fully traceable 3.1B materials for all wetted components.

So far we have supplied over 300 of these valves and this will now become the standard Hook Up for the future.