The energy crisis of the 1970s ended the era of cheap oil, and it also started a race for offshore production. When the barrel price crossed the double-digits barrier, the higher costs for developing more complex drilling and production systems became justified. Early platforms typically had a low production capacity by today’s standards – around 10.000 BPD (Barrels per Day). Now, there are behemoths such as the Thunder Horse PDQ (Production and oil Drilling facility with crew Quarters) with capacity to process 250,000 barrels of oil and 200 million metric cubic feet (Mmcf) of gas a day. Such large production systems can easily have more than 12,000 manual valves, the majority likely being ball valves. In this article we are going to focus on some of the block valves commonly used for the topside facilities of offshore production platforms.
To read the full Valve World Americas April 2020 special topic article, please contact Brittani Schroeder (b.schroeder@kci-world.com) for the full PDF.