Tag: tech talk

Passing valves is a well-known problem in oil, gas, and petrochemical industry, which imposes operational and maintenance challenges to operating facilities.

If you think about it, industrial plants and living organisms share at least two similarities: lifecycle and a complex design.

Industrial plants are complex structures. Subtle changes in a raw material or a distracted employee adjusting a control slightly over its setting can have a cascading effect leading to failure.

In practice, control valves leak, even when fully closed. Ignorance of valve trim leakage definitions has led to many misunderstandings throughout industry: Control valves being misidentified as requiring tight shutoff (TSO); TSO valves (or control valves) requested when excessive or inappropriate for the application; Vendors highlighting their valve having “tight shutoff” capabilities without mentioning crucial testing details.

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” This is a quote often attributed to former Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, with some sources pointing out that he first said it in the 70s.

Reliable gate valve operation is not dependent solely on the product itself. In fact, it is more accurate to say that reliability is the product of sound utility operations.

It is well worth mentioning that anything can be controlled if you just have the right valve for it. Engineers need to find the shortest possible way to solve a problem and decide on making it cost-effective. Hence, the solution might be selecting a control valve for the project.

Similar to valves and other industrial water and wastewater components, quarter turn actuators need to meet strict standards to be compliant with industrial and safety regulations.

The Drill & Tap (D&T) repair process has been used commonly in the Refinery, Petrochemical and Chemical plant sectors (Downstream) for more than 60 years.

All industrial plants face numerous challenges to operate in a safe and profitable way: costs, competition, raw material quality, regular maintenance, and the list goes on. Aging plants have these very same challenges and a whole other burden – some being age-related and some that are variations of the ‘regular’ challenges.