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Flanged Valves
The prosperity of the valve industry has been shown in many fields. Actually, there is great variety of the types of the valve. All these types are making their own contributions to the development of the whole modern industry. As we all know, Flanged Ball Valves are made to control the flow of gases, liquids and granular solids in many systems. In order to meet various requirements, valves are designed and manufactured with a wide range of the types, sizes, materials, working temperature and pressure and means of actuation and so on. At this moment, we take the type of the ball valve and gate valve out for a comparison. Learn more about flanged valves below.
Flanged Valves
Ball Valves in our history, have always proven helpful in a variety of ways. Review the article below and let us know what you think. Enjoy!
Importance of Ball and Pressure Valves to Industry Today
from The Valve Blog by Valtorc International
Although the ball valve was invented in the 1950’s it is more used today than ever before in history. This valve made of a simple ball with a hole in it has found wide spread applications in the chemical, petroleum refining, paper making, water treatment plants, and many other industries.
The engineering beauty of ball valves and control valves from their simplicity. A ball with a hole in the middle sits inside passage way that fluid or air from passing through. When the ball is turned so its hole is in line with the pipe the fluid passes though, however when it is turned so the hole does not line up with the pipe the movement of fluid is stopped. This simple design allows ball valves to withstand temperatures of up to 200 degrees and pressures of up to 700 bars making them ideal for most industrial uses and easy to repair. The whole mechanism can easily be controlled by a handle outside the valve that can be turned 90 degrees.
Ball valves come in a large variety. There sizes range from as small as half of a centimeter to is much is 30 centimeters. They also come in five different body styles: split body, single body, top entry, three-piece body, and wielded. Despite the variety in ball valves, all ball valves work in much the same way.
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Butterfly Valve
Used as a primary control device in fluid transfer applications, butterfly valves are preferred over most other types of valves for different reasons. Firstly, they perform a quarter-turn open/close operation, which is frequent, quick, and at less fluid resistance. Second, they display good flow control for a wide range of liquids, gases, suspended solids, and slurries. Lastly, they are compact, lightweight, and available in a wide range of materials, too.
The wastewater treatment, pharmaceutical, power generation, paper processing, food & beverage, and fine chemical industries utilize butterfly valves extensively. PTFE lined (FEP / PFA) valves are used in high corrosive chemical environments, whereas hygienic valves made from special types of elastomers are used in the food & beverage industry. Butterfly valves also come in fire safe designs to meet the safety requirements of the petrochemical industry.
Typically, butterfly valves come in sizes ranging from 1 to over 200. Their pressure capabilities range from 150 psi to 750 psi. Available in manual and automatically actuated modes, they are used as an on/off as well as controlling/modulating device. The seat material, body style (wafer or lug), and stem- design play crucial roles in selecting a butterfly valve.
Selecting the Right Style:
The most common types of body designs or mounting styles in butterfly valves are the wafer, lug, semi-lugged, and double flanged styles. While the wafer design is cheaper and safer, the lug style helps in removing downstream piping. Wafer styles attribute to the lightweight structure of butterfly valves, which ensures ease of installation.
Selecting Stem Designs:
The stem or shaft of a butterfly valve comes in one-piece or two-piece designs. While selecting a stem design for a high performance application, one must be aware of the fact that they have to be in contact with the fluid media and hence media compatible.
Selecting the Right Seat Material:
Being critical elements, seals, or seat materials, also determine the quality of a butterfly valve. A variety of factors, including chemical compatibility, pressure, temperature, cost, and wear is considered prior to selecting seats. PTFE (Polytetrafluroethylene) and RTFE (Reinforced Polytetrafluroethylene) are two commonly used seat materials known for their abrasion resistant, electrical insulation, and thermal properties. UHMWPE (Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene) is another popular material with excellent corrosion and chemical resistance used in the tobacco industry. The material is also ideal for low-radiation environments.
If the application involves a highly abrasive environment, inflatable seats that offer high wear resistance are used. Today, many applications require butterfly valves with FDA approved seat materials. Fire-safe, metal-seated butterfly valves are also popular choices today.
Selecting the Right Type of Butterfly Valve:
Butterfly valves are classified into three types based on their construction:
1. Resilient
2. High Performance
3. Tricentric
The resilient type of butterfly valves uses the rubber flexibility and hence used widely in applications that require lowest pressure ratings. They handle temperatures ranging from 25F to 300F. High-pressure applications use high performance types of butterfly valves as these valves provides a wear-free sealing. Temperature ratings for these valves range from 400F to 450F. Tricentric designs feature a metal seat, which can withstand tremendous amount of pressure and temperatures up to 1000F.
Selecting the Right Valve Size:
We can determine the right valve size by calculating the Flow Coefficient (Cv) of the butterfly valve. You can use the below formula to calculate the Cv:
Cv = GPM / √ΔP
Here, GPM is the max flow requirement and P is the maximum pressure drop. The valve size that is equal to the calculated Cv value is the correct size. If the needed Cv value is between two valve sizes, the larger valve size is selected.
About the Author:
Ron Bargman is a regular contributor of manufacturing-theme articles drawing on his decades long experiences first as an owner of an auto-parts supplier and manufacturer, to his present status as the founder and president of Zycon, an internationally recognized search engine for manufacturers. Ron's rich industry history provides insight into manufacturing and engineering news and events that are timely, poignant and relevant.
Butterfly Valve
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Pipeline Ball Valves are manufactured and tested in accordance with the requirements of API 6D, and are designed not to rely on lubricant to ensure that they seal.
During manufacture and factory testing, the use of lubricants and/or sealants is prohibited. This is to prevent masking of any defects in the new valve.
Installation and commissioning into a pipeline is an interventive engineering process, making use of hot and cold working techniques relying on mechanical tooling. As a result it is inevitable that between valve installation and commissioning, an amount of foreign debris will enter the valve (i.e. sand / dirt / swarf / weld slag). This is a natural result of the manufacturing process that cannot be avoided.
Once installed the valve is usually cycled during the testing of its gearbox or actuator, and again during hydrostatic testing of the pipeline.
These activities create tiny scratches on the polished ball surface where the debris present in the line wears on the ball and seat during the cycling of the valve.
In time, this reduces the valves ability to provide an adequate seal, as these tiny scratches begin to cause minor leak paths. All fluid and gas flows contain an element of contaminant which contributes to this effect over the life of the valve.
Minor leak paths that seal at low pressure become obvious when using the valve to isolate high pressure gas. Seating material is often softer than the ball itself in order to provide a pliable material which takes up minor leak paths, but at higher pressures the gas compresses the seats and they become less pliable meaning that the minor leak paths become more significant at higher pressures.
This type of damage mechanism can also be said to be true for gate and plug valves, as gate and plug surfaces are also susceptible to the similar damage. In fact any sealing surface subject to mechanical friction is susceptible to the damage mechanism described above.
Lubricants, lubricant-sealants and emergency-sealants
Lubricants help clean valve internals, and reduce operating torque. Valvecare use a light lubricant called Equa-Lube Eighty from Sealweld immediately after hydrostatic testing of valve, to purge all test water from seat pockets where corrosion normally occurs. The advantage of this is that it removes as much debris as possible from the internal mechanism of the valve, thus reducing the chance for wear. Lubrication also reduces the friction between the wearing surfaces. Of course, new contaminant can be introduced at any time via the flow in the pipeline.
Lubricant-Sealants help to preserve seat sealing effectiveness, and to seal worn valves with minor leakage problems. Valvecare use a lubricant-sealant called Total-Lube # 911 from Sealweld, this has been proven to seal minor scratches to sealing surfaces and shallow corrosion pits, as well as small nicks and cuts on soft seals.
For valves with sealing surface scoring, this is an effective way to achieve a bubble tight seal on a valve that would otherwise fail a leak test. Use of lubricant-sealants can delay or prevent the need for costly overhaul of a worn valve.
Emergency Sealants provide an effective temporary means of creating of leak tight seal, even on valves with severe leakage problems. Valve sealing plays an important role, when performing pipeline repair, modification or renewal work, as often the costs of shutting down, evacuating, draining, and excavating pipeline equipment are typically many times more than just the cost of a new valve. Valvecare use a Valve Sealant called Ball Valve Sealant #5050 from Sealweld, containing particles of PTFE, and is capable of sealing relatively large scratches to sealing surfaces.
Lubrication
Lubrication is introduced into the valve, using the seat injection fittings. Valves that do not have seat injections fittings can usually be retrofitted to include these. Specialist valve maintenance companies, such as Valvecare, can advise you on specifics for individual valves.
Seat lubrication, is a proven means of cleaning foreign debris from valve seats, and done properly as part of a scheduled valve maintenance programme, stops debris from getting there in the first place. This practice significantly reduces damage suffered during installation, commissioning and normal cycling operation, extending the service life of the valve dramatically. The costs associated with a scheduled maintenance program including lubrication are considerably lower than a full overhaul or replacement of the valve itself.
Lubricating your valves gives the following operational advantages:
- Cleans their seats of potentially damaging particles (Sand / Dirt / Swarf / weld slag)
- Stops debris from getting stuck between seats if administered before pigging pipeline
- Prevents and removes stiction (Torque to operate reduced / less strain on stem and actuator)
- Preserves the life of their seals, and components against mechanical and corrosion damage
These advantages reduce operational cost and should therefore form part of your planned valve maintenance programme.
Sealing
Emergency Sealing involves the introduction of heavy sealant, through the valve seat injection fittings, to achieve a temporary seal. Valves that do not have seat injections fittings can usually be retrofitted to include these. Specialist valve maintenance companies, such as Valvecare, can advise you on specifics for individual valves.
Emergency Sealing your valves:
Provides an temporary bubble tight seal, even on valves with severe leakage problems
Has significant cost savings, when compared to alternatives
Saves time, with lead times for some replacement pipeline valves taking several months
The Lubrication, lubricant-Sealant and Emergency Sealant process involves the use of specialist equipment, capable of pumping a range of lubrication and sealant types safely at pressures of 10,000–15,000 psi. It is recommended that trained valve service engineers, proficient in the safe use of sealant guns and pumps, carry out this procedure.
Important Considerations
Lubrication and sealing becomes more critical in applications such as Natural Gas, Production Wellheads, Gathering Systems, Gas processing Plants, Pipelines, Gas Storage Facilities and Gas Distribution Systems. Applications like these are more likely to cause damage to the critical sealing surfaces of valves, due to the lack of lubrication present in dry gas, and the presence of sand and debris in production wellheads. As part of a valve maintenance programme, preventative valve maintenance helps minimises the adverse effects of these services, increasing the service life of your valves.
For increased valve service life, the presence of an emergency seat sealant injection feature is an important consideration when procuring pipeline valve stock.
Equally as important is the choice of injection fittings and/or adaptors that are installed on the valve. Sealant injection fittings feature a means of passing sealant or lubricant into the valve, and incorporate a high pressure metal seated check valve. As a safety precaution, Valvecare do not endorse the use of carbon steel, crimped style injection fittings. As standard, we only recommend the use quality stainless steel injection fittings incorporating a threaded spring retaining cage, in order to minimise the risk of dangerous fitting failure.
Valve lubrication and sealing is an essential part of an effectively managed valve maintenance programme. Once installed and lubricated, a regular documented lubrication schedule should be established for all critical valves. Valvecare specialise in a supplying a total management programme for your valves, with a focus on the criticality of valves in relation to impact on safety elements and production, maintenance routines, spares holding, valve tracking and selection procedures. This type of valve management programme is a highly effective way of optimising reliability and safety whilst minimising cost and downtime.
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Making Use of Steel Ball Valves
When it comes to infrastructure, we can really name a lot of companies which are getting into it and one of the most in demand services anywhere today is plumbing. Without plumbing, people would always have a ruin day due to an inadequacy of water. More than that, when we are also going to talk about plumbing, we also need to consider the things that they mostly use and one of which are those valves that are useful in order to make a job successful. If you are among the plumbers, you will surely look for the most durable and top-quality kind of valve, and in such case, the use of steel ball valves should be taken account.
There are now plenty of manufacturing companies who had study hard in order to make the best valve to use in any sorts of plumbing activity and good thing was, Global Valve and Controls had able to establish the perfect valve to be used in any sorts of plumbing constructions. Steel ball valves are among their recent valves being made which has been establish through the finest technological method and had able to pass various evaluations from experts as well. With these steel ball valves, you can really have the guarantee that this would last long despite the fact that it is being use constantly.
Global Valve and Controls had undergone careful study in order to perfectly design the right valves to be use in all sorts of plumbing construction. GVC’s have their own technical support team who see to it that all steel ball valves are of top quality and will even provide you with best function. You can now start buying these steel ball valves since these are now available in all markets in your place.
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At GVC we know our market, keeping up to date on all the latest news.
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Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a multi-part series examining the fundamentals behind the structural transformation of the U.S. oil markets and the downstream logistics challenges that are resulting. The third installment covered the “disconnect” between inland crudes priced off Cushing crude values when the North American oil hub is flush with crude in storage. (Image Source: CN)
As geopolitical turmoil drives crude prices skyward and lifts retail gasoline to US$4.89 per gallon (/gal) in cities like Los Angeles, it’s anything but business as usual in the U.S. oil patch.
Inland producers who are left in the dust amid triple-digit waterborne crude prices on most every U.S. coast are pioneering inventive downstream logistics to ship crude at low cost to higher-priced markets – thereby avoiding the disconnect in the wild west of North America’s oil industry.
Nearly every multimodal logistics opportunity short of yesteryear’s Pony Express and today’s Federal Express is being considered to cost-effectively ship crude oil to profit from high-price spreads between landlocked and waterborne crudes.
In intra-day trading on March 2, a remarkable spread was logged as the West Canadian Select (WCS) grade saw discount pricing around $80.00 per barrel (/ bbl), while both Heavy Louisiana Sweet and Light Louisiana Sweet (HLS and LLS) crudes on the Gulf Coast traded at more than $122.00/bbl.
That astounding discount of more than $40.00/bbl represents 50% of the then current WCS value. The basis differential can partly be explained by crude quality, but these theoretically, wide-open arbitrage opportunities attract pioneering innovators like the land rush days of old.
Furthermore, the $19.70/bbl discount to LLS prices that day for 38 million barrels of crude stored inland at Cushing at the time represented $750 million in dollar terms.
In the void left by insufficient pipeline takeaway capacity, tankers are stepping in to ship crude via rail and inland waterways away from the heavily utilized and smaller Mid-Continent refining fleet toward a Gulf Coast refining fleet twice its size.
Canadian Railway Company Rides the Rails to the Rescue?
Canadian National Railway Co. (CN), based in Montreal, Quebec, has pioneered and trademarked, PipelineOnRail – described as an “economically sound, surprisingly fast way to ship crude oil products within Alberta to the rest of Canada, the U.S. Midwest, the Gulf coast and other export markets.”
The plan seeks to use its extensive North American rail system that already traverses the Canadian continent on an East-West axis to tank crude south along its interconnected rail spine spanning the U.S. down the Mississippi River valley all the way to and around the U.S. Gulf Coast.
On March 1, Hart Energy contacted CN’s Kelli Svendsen, senior manager of regional public and government affairs, and learned that “CN has been testing concepts to move crude (heavy, light, and pure bitumen) from areas in Western Canada to various markets in the U.S.”
Svendsen said two areas of Canada are already exporting crude oil to the U.S: “CN has moved pure bitumen from Fort McMurray to U.S. markets,” and “from the Bakken reserves in Saskatchewan (Canada) to the U.S.”
The Bakken effort began recently with shipments “in October 2010.” Svendsen said, adding that “CN is optimistic that rail will play an increasing role in the transport of crude moving forward.”
EnSys Study Documents Crude-by-Rail Potential
EnSys Energy noted in a December 2010 North American crude logistics assessment that “CN Rail currently imports condensate, for blending with oil-sands bitumen to make DilBit (a.k.a. diluted bitumen)” from the Kitimat Port on Canada’s west coast.
According to EnSys, the “PipelineOnRail … avoids the large, fixed investments associated with major pipelines.” EnSys also noted that CN indicates potential capacity to move “as many as 200,000 b/d or more.”
EnSys said the study did not allow for the expansion of the PipelineOnRail capacity in any scenario, because tariffs for rail are generally not considered attractive relative to pipelines.
“However, during a period of constrained pipeline capacity, the PipelineOnRail could compete as an alternative,” the assessment reads.
Pioneers on the U.S. Side of the Border
The Bakken petroleum that CN is shipping originates from a producing region that extends into the U.S. states of North Dakota and Montana. Drillers in North Dakota produce the area’s greatest share of petroleum using unconventional hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques.
Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority (PA), wrote in a September 10, 2010, release: “Because of our distance to market, regional producers have always absorbed a per-barrel discount on production.” Yet he noted that recent increases in rail and pipeline “takeaway capacity has pared that discount down substantially.”
Kringstad tabulated new capacity for crude oil shipments from several takeaway projects, including new rail-loading terminals in the area. These include EOG Resource’s 65,000-b/d rail facility in Stanley, N.D., which began rail tanker shipments to Cushing, Okla., in December 2009.
Hart contacted EOG spokesperson K. Leonard on March 1, who shared that “EOG is currently utilizing five trains, with plans to add a sixth in the future.” Leonard said EOG leases the rail tankers it uses to ship crude.
“The company typically loads one train daily and regularly hauls 68,000 gross barrels of crude per train,” Leonard said, adding that “Each train has approximately 100 cars.”
North Dakota PA’s Kringstad further noted in his release that Hess Corp. is readying a $48-million, 60,000 b/d rail facility in Tioga, N.D., for an early-2012 start-up. His post also said that Dakota Transport Solutions began shipping crude from New Town, N.D., to St. James, La., in August 2010. Kringstad said that facility reportedly had the capacity to transport 20,000 b/d by the end of 2010.
Kringstad also noted that smaller rail facilities operate with an estimated combined capacity of 30,000 b/d and include North Dakota locations in Minot, Dore, Donnybrook and Stampede.
Rangeland Energy LLC a New Pioneer
Rangeland Energy LLC (Rangeland), based in Sugar Land, Texas, has also announced plans that would enable Bakken producers to ship crude by rail tanker to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
On March 1, Hart spoke with Chris Keene, Rangeland president and CEO, and learned the company is developing the “COLT” rail terminal hub or connector to ship 100 rail tankers daily (60,000 b/d) of Bakken crude via the BNSF Railway Company to points including the Gulf Coast.
Keene said his company was formed in 2009 and noted: “It’s a huge opportunity, and I think our facility that we are building will be extremely valuable to the industry. It’s been great.”
“There are new rail tank cars being built as we speak. As fast as they can build them, they are being leased. In fact, they are being leased before they build them. Tank car makers, Keene said, have a huge backlog at present – driven by this trend.
Although Keene would not name names, Hart learned that Dallas-based Trinity Industries, Inc., and Oregon-based The Greenbriar Companies, manufacture multi-modal tankers for rail, barge and/or land transport. A review of company disclosures suggested a confirmation of strong backlogs in tanker manufacturers.
The new rail tankers “are coming on because you have a huge demand that has grown not only in North Dakota but also in the Eagle Ford,” Keene added.
Shippers also “are doing whatever they can using existing fleets … a refiner that has an existing fleet of rail cars that maybe they were moving refined products. They convert them and move crude oil,” according to Keene.
“We have not looked at rail into Canada although we have talked with the folks working Saskatchewan’s Bakken trend. Everything we have looked at doing is in and around Williams County in North Dakota where we will be building,” Keene noted. “But certainly the opportunity exists wherever there is existing infrastructure, rail infrastructure, there is an opportunity to do manifest or unit trains.
“Currently, we have a huge draw to get it to the Gulf Coast, into the LLS market,” he said, but “non-traditional” markets for inland crude could soon take the rising flows shipped by rail tanker from Bakken and Eagle Ford producers. “Bakken crude is going to California at Bakersfield right now, by manifest trains, a few cars at a time.”
Keene further mused about the potential for Eagle Ford to flood the Gulf Coast, saying that this could back crude up at Cushing and further back in the Bakken.
“Now you have this rush of light, sweet crude coming on the market; where is it going to go? It’s an interesting story,” Keene said. “It will be interesting to see which refiners run it given that a lot of these refiners just a couple years ago were converting to run heavy, sour crude with investments of billions of dollars.”
Musket Trading Makes The Connection
On March 1, Hart Energy also contacted Oklahoma-based Musket Trading and spoke to Dan House, managing director of crude oil. House said the shifting North American oil industry landscape has “been pretty active as far as the changes that are going on. That creates opportunity, so it’s a good place for us.”
Musket owns and operates rail-served terminals; maintains some 2,000 railcars; provides shipment logistics in 39 states and Canada; and distributes crude oil and other commodities via more than 20,000 railcars annually. That includes crude from the Bakken region to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
House confirmed that rail shipments of Canadian crude are increasingly being talked about and occurring in small batches. “We have done a small amount of it, and I know there are a lot of people looking at it in a bigger way recently,” House said.
Regarding Eagle Ford production, House said producers there yield “a lot more condensate type material that will be railed out of the Eagle Ford. The crude seems to have a good local market, but the condensate volumes that they are talking about do not seem to have a natural home down there.”
Hart also asked House if the Eagle Ford condensate could be sent northward to Alberta’s bitumen producers for use as diluent instead of importing it at Kitimat and shipping it by CN rails to Alberta. House agreed that this opportunity is “most likely” and “that’s where we are seeing it make sense.”
Kirby Inland – Heavy Oil to Crude Tanker?
To obtain the waterborne tank barge perspective, Hart Energy spoke with Steve Holcomb, communications officer for Kirby Corp. in Houston – among the largest inland waterway shippers in the U.S.
According to Holcomb: “We carry very little crude oil. We’ve had a lot of inquiries into it, but they have got to get the product to the Mississippi River or the Arkansas River. So it’s a logistics problem of getting the crude to a river system that is navigable.”
When asked about CN’s rail plan, Holcomb said: “A tank barge would be much more economical way to move it than rail cars. But then, of course, you have to have access to [load the crude] on a viable waterway.”
“Our utilization is pretty high, so we don’t have a lot of barges available, but the industry may have some available … If you move refined products in a barge and you switch it over to crude service, then you have a significant cost of cleaning that barge. You cannot carry a petroleum product upriver and bring crude oil back.
“That doesn’t work. It must be dedicated,” Holcomb said, or the shipper could incur something like “$50,000 to $60,000 to clean it.” That cleaning cost could be justifiable, Holcomb said, if spread-over barrels shipped over a lengthy lease commitment.
“If it’s moved in a black oil barge, it’s a little different. We have 112 black oil barges out of our total fleet of 825,” Holcomb told Hart, noting that such costly cleaning procedures would be unnecessary.
Hart noted the EnSys stance that “rail linked in to barge (or tanker) could also play a role in the transport market. Small volumes of WCSB crudes are currently arriving in the Gulf Coast in part via barge.”
Holcomb offered assurance that “Somebody will figure it out before long. If it involves inland tank barges, Kirby will benefit, because it will tighten up the inland barge market. Barge availability will be much less than what it is today, and rates will begin to escalate.”
According to Holcomb, several other black oil barge firms provide similar services. If Hart Energy makes headway on researching those, they will be covered in a future segment of Hart Energy’s Oil’s Changing Landscape special series.
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Southcross Energy Agrees To Construct Major Natural Gas Pipeline Extension In South Texas
March 8, 2011
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Southcross Energy, Dallas, Texas, has reported that the company has entered into a long-term agreement with Swift Energy Company to provide natural gas gathering, transportation and processing services for production from Swift Energy’s acreage in McMullen County, Texas. Southcross will construct a 25-mile, 20-inch natural gas pipeline with related lateral gathering lines and convert an existing dry pipeline system to rich gas service in order to gather the Swift Energy gas for processing.
The McMullen extension will have an initial, expandable capacity of 120 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The system, which is expected to be in service in mid-2011, will originate in McMullen County, Texas and extend to Southcross’ CCNG Transmission pipeline for gas delivery to and processing at Southcross’ processing plant near Gregory, Texas.
“This pipeline will be an additional extension for Southcross into the Eagle Ford Shale play, an important step in accomplishing our growth strategy. We are delighted to establish this relationship with Swift Energy and provide the important services Swift Energy requires in South Texas,” says David W. Biegler, Southcross Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
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Pipeline Valves Article
Jeannie Stell - Editor, Pipeline and Gas Technology | March 18, 2011
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The Niobrara oil and gas play is an Upper Cretaceous formation in the Rocky Mountain region. The deep formation underlying northern Colorado, western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming is where the oil rush is taking hold.
Highly productive wells are being tapped in Colorado, just south of the Wyoming line. Horizontal drilling and other newer drilling technologies are being applied to the Niobrara formation, which is geologically similar to North Dakota’s Bakken play.
The self-sourced hydrocarbon system has organic carbon content in the 1% to7% range and is produced at depths of 6,000 to 9,000 feet in the Denver-Julesburg (D-J), North Park and Powder River basins.
Current focus areas are in and around Wattenberg Field in Weld County, Colorado, and in Laramie, Platte and Goshen counties, Wyoming, around Silo Field. Other areas include the southern portion of the Powder River Basin in Campbell, Converse and Natrona counties and North Park Basin in Jackson, Routt and Moffat counties, Colorado.
Today, the play is primarily exploited via horizontal drilling with lateral lengths of 3,500 to 5,000 feet and is fracture stimulated. Well costs run from $3- to $6 million.
Noble Energy (800,000 acres), EOG Resources (400,000 acres), Chesapeake Energy (400,000 acres), East Resources (100,000 acres), Fidelity Exploration and Production (80,000 acres), Petroleum Development (72,000 acres), Voyager Oil & Gas (48,000 acres) and SM Energy (24,000 acres) are some of the major players. Also, Anadarko Petroleum has a large position by way of the Union Pacific Resources Land Grant.
Operators in the area have long produced wet gas and light sweet crude from the D-J Basin. Recent reports suggest the Niobrara could have recoverable resources between 4 billion and 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Oil Take-Away
Several pipelines traverse the Niobrara play, but only one is a major oil system. In Colorado’s D-J Basin, SemGroup Inc.’s much anticipated 526-mile, 12-inch-diameter White Cliffs pipeline now provides about 30,000 barrels of oil take-away from the area into the oil hub at Cushing, Oklahoma.
A year ago, Noble Energy and Anadarko were enthusiastic about hooking up to the system. Both operators subscribed to 10,000 barrels daily.
“There have been times when we had to shut in wells up to a week at a time because the area lacked sufficient refining capacity,” says Anadarko’s facilities engineer Joe Aucoin, from his office at the White Cliffs’ connect near Plattesville. “It’s huge for us.”
At the time, price realizations in the field were expected to improve by as much as $6 per barrel, thanks to cost efficiencies from the new pipeline, according to Anadarko. Field-wide, savings are a potential $65 million per year at the pipeline’s capacity, according to Wood Mackenzie.
White Cliffs will not only provide producers such as Anadarko and Noble Energy with access to more markets and potentially higher prices for their crude, but also nearby oil-polishing facilities see reduced costs that were previously incurred in hot-oiling processes at the individual lease sites.
Other benefits of the pipeline include reduced air emissions from truck traffic, which used to be the transportation mode for take-away from the play, and an onsite centralized truck facility.
The common carrier originates in Platteville, Colorado, northeast of Denver, and terminates at SemCrude’s storage facility in Cushing. It has 100,000 barrels of crude oil storage in Platteville, adjacent to SemCrude’s 10-bay truck-unloading facility with 20,000 barrels of crude oil storage.
White Cliffs is the only line connecting the DJ Basin directly to Cushing. Despite its single-pump stations design, the pipeline is expandable to 50,000 barrels per day. White Cliffs is a major asset for SemGroup, the company that recently emerged from reorganization brought about by its 2009 Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Operators were also anticipating significant increased take-away capacity for natural gas liquids (NGLs). The DJ Basin Lateral Pipeline, which began operations in March 2009, is a 125-mile NGL line connecting the DJ Basin with the Overland Pass Pipeline.
The 760-mile Overland line can transport 110,000 barrels of NGLs per day. It runs from Opal, Wyoming, to Conway, Kansas.
The pipeline’s capacity is 55,000 barrels per day from existing gas processing facilities in the DJ Basin. Such gas processing facilities include DCP Midstream’s Lucerne and Mewborne plants.
Additionally, DCP’s Platteville and Greeley facilities are connected to Mewborne. Increasing NGL production in the Rocky Mountain region correlates with increasing gas development.
“With the Overland and DJ Lateral in place, take-away constraints are lifting for producers,” says Roz Elliot, director of public affairs for DCP Midstream, Denver.
The new capacity provides a valuable additional outlet for NGLs from the field, agrees Ben MacFarlane, NGLs analyst with Bentek Energy.
Previously, the field’s NGLs had to travel on the Phillips Petroleum line down to Borger, Texas, or be trucked to alternative markets in Kansas.
Gas Take-Away
Most of the other pipelines in the area transport natural gas.
Trailblazer Pipeline Co. LLC owns and operates a 436-mile gas take-away pipeline system that runs from Colorado through southeastern Wyoming to Beatrice, Nebraska. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners owns 100% of Trailblazer.
The pipeline is operated by Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America, which is operated and partially owned by Kinder Morgan Inc. Trailblazer provides an outlet for Rocky Mountain gas seeking Midwest and East Coast markets. It receives gas from various interconnections and receipt points in Colorado, including Wyoming Inter-Dull Knife and Colorado Inter-Tomahawk.
Some of the largest delivery points for Trailblazer include NGPL-Gage Co and NNG-Beatrice in Nebraska. The top gas transportation customers for Trailblazer are Colorado Interstate Gas Co. and Marathon Oil.
Although the pipeline provides firm transportation and interruptible transportation services, it does not offer storage services.
Colorado Interstate Gas (CIG) pipeline is a 4,200-mile pipeline with a design capacity of about 3.7 billion cubic feet per day. El Paso Pipeline Partners owns the controlling interest (58%) in CIG.
The pipeline delivers gas from production areas in the Rocky Mountains and the Anadarko Basin directly to customers in Colorado and Wyoming and indirectly to the Midwest, Southwest, California and Pacific Northwest. CIG also owns interests in five storage facilities in Colorado and Kansas, which collectively have about 35 billion cubic feet of underground working natural gas storage capacity and one natural gas processing plant in Wyoming.
Also, CIG owns a 50% ownership interest in WYCO Development LLC, or WYCO, a joint venture with an affiliate of Public Service Company of Colorado, and operates WYCO’s High Plains pipeline and Totem Gas Storage facility.
El Paso also owns Wyoming Interstate Co. (WIC), an 800-mile pipeline with a design capacity of some 3.3 billion cubic feet per day. WIC is a mainline system that extends from western Wyoming to northeast Colorado (at the Cheyenne Hub) and several lateral pipeline systems that extend from various interconnections along the WIC mainline into western Colorado and northeast Wyoming and into eastern Utah.
WIC is one of the primary interstate natural gas transportation systems providing take-away capacity from the Overthrust, Piceance, Uinta, Powder River and Green River basins. CIG is the operator of the WIC system via a service agreement with WIC.
Also, El Paso owns 48% of Young Gas Storage Co., a facility with 6 billion cubic feet of capacity in Colorado.
Land Rush
Although the Niobrara play was a sleepy, slowly developed area about nine months ago, the play has drawn the interest of both oil and gas producers. Low gas prices make any U.S. oil play look attractive, and the Niobrara is no slouch.
In July, the Office of State Lands and Investments in Wyoming held a special oil and gas lease auction in response to demand from energy companies looking to acquire leasing rights in the booming eastern region of Wyoming’s share of the Niobrara.
A near-record $42 million of bids came in for the right to drill on state land. High bids reached $3,200 an acre, with the big spender title going to Big Bear Oil & Gas, which purchased 29 leases, including six for $1 million or more. The regularly scheduled state lease auction last May generated a record $45.6 million for Wyoming.
“Those who’ve wanted to be involved in this play have been out there. They’re grabbing up as much acreage as they can,” Harold Kemp, head of state minerals leasing, publicly stated.
The play is geologically similar to North Dakota’s Bakken play. After the rush to lease, ever more producers will begin to drill out their plays and more midstream infrastructure will be needed to move the produced hydrocarbons to market.
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Global Valve and Controls strive to provide earth friendly options, especially the containment of fugitive emissions being released in the earth's atmosphere. Over 44% of a plant's expense, is due to leaking valves and the replacement of them because of old technology, such as the Chevron design. GVC has a new technology to lower this expense by a substanial decreased cost of ownership.
GVC has been manufacturing an accessory, the Media Containment Bonnet, since 2004. The MCB is unique because of the installation, maintenace and application, as an option to our ball valves. The following highlighted reasons to incluse this accessory for $300 - $500.00 at time of purchase of the ball valve series are as follows:
- Increases the longevity of the ball valve. A standard increased life expectancy of a leaking ball valve, with the GVC MCB application, is an extra three years.
- No down time due to the shut down of a plant or pipeline because of the removal of a leaking valve. Within 10 mins, the MCB is installed with no tools other than a wrench is necessary.
If you are a distributor or end-user interested in an instructional video or a lunch and learn instructional demonstration, please call Global Valve and Controls at 1-866-965-8GVC (482) or email
Lparker@gvcintl.com.
Stainless Steel Valves
The Introduction of Stainless Steel Valve
A so-called stainless steel valve is a valve, mainly made of stainless steel, which regulates the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. The types of stainless steel used in the body of a valve are 301, 304, 316, 304L and 316L. According to international standards, they also can be classified into CF8, CF3, CF8M and CF3M. There are all kinds of the stainless steel valves, such as gate valve, ball valve, butterfly valve, check valve, plug valve, needle valve, baiting valve, steam trap, air-operated valve and so on.
As far as we know, stainless steel is a common name for metal alloys that consist of 10.5% or more Chromium (Cr) and more than 50% Iron (Fe). The chromium content in stainless steel alloys is what generally prevents corrosion. It helps to procrastinate the iron to rust by oxygen and water. It works by reacting with oxygen to form a tough, adherent, invisible, passive layer of chromium oxide film on the steel surface. Besides, the additions, such as nickel are used to raise the general corrosion resistance required in more aggressive usage or conditions.
Because of these components, it is famous for its resistance to corrosion and staining, low maintenance, relatively low cost, and familiar luster and it is an ideal base material for a host of commercial applications, especially for valve application. On basis of properties of the stainless steel, stainless steel ball valve has the features of corrosion-proof, rust-proof, water-proof and durability.
Therefore, it is widely used in a lot of industries where the resistance to corrosion is required, such as chemical, petrochemical, oil, paper-making, mine, electricity, gas, food, pharmaceutical, water supply, mechanical equipment, electronic, urban construction and so on.
Nowadays, stainless steel valves have been the necessary products in all kinds of fields. However, there are only a few valve manufacturers who reach the international standard. So when people purchase this valve, they must require the seller to show the certifications for production. Through this way people can avoid buying the unqualified products. What's more, this valve from Japan, Germany, U.S., U.K. and Shanghai in China are the better choices for purchasers, because most of them from the above places are in line with international standards. As for the famous brands, there are Kitazawa of Japan, Venn of Japan, Top of Germany, VTON of U.S. and Shanghai Xiandie valve in China.
SeekValve.com is the global B2B platform in the industry of valves and valve parts. SeekValve aggregates the trade leads in this area, and our ultimate target is to benefit the buyers and sellers of valves and valve parts by utilizing these leads through our online tools.
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