Alberta, Canada (February 16, 2018)
Baker Hughes, together with local partner Centrix Control Solutions, have recently supplied (10) heavy duty 77000 series, severe service valves into Conocco Phillips, Canada – Surmount SAGD Oil Sands facility to replace a competitor’s products that were quickly failing under the harsh service. These severe service valves are used as level control valves on separators where they pass low quality (80%) steam with entrained particles through a high-pressure reduction process. This services results in severe flashing of the 2-phase dirty water, containing contamination particles that induce clogging to small trim areas, and high-velocity wire drawing with impingement erosion to the plug. These effects quickly deteriorates into a high velocity fluid jet inside the valve that was leading to the development of holes through the side of the valve body.
“The customer was replacing valves every 5 months to keep the system on-line due to the severe wear they were seeing.” says Bryan Miller, Western Canada Sales Leader. “The solution we were able to offer included a large, expanding area multi-stage trim to limit velocity through each pressure reduction. The design includes a smooth contour effect that eliminates any 90-degree angle that would result in immediate erosion from direct impingement of the particulate in the flow.” The valves were designed from forgings to meet the direct face-to-face of the previous valves, and were air-shipped from Baker Hughes’s Coimbatore factory in India direct to the customer to meet their critical turn-around schedule to avoid yet another set of competitor replacement trim. “Local support from our partners at Centrix, along with the specialty engineering capabilities from Baker Hughes’s Dresser Valve India (DVI) factory were critical to the success to solve the challenges of this demanding service.”
Baker Hughes’s portfolio of severe service valves include a wide range of high-pressure letdown products to meet application challenges with almost any process fluid, clean or dirty. The 77000 series is a flagship product often found in high temperature service in harsh separator applications in both tar sands, and hydrocrackers as it is contoured to prevent flashing and erosion damage, as well as sized to eliminate choking effects during the formation of hydrocarbon gases. This solution is one of many Masoneilan severe service valves that customers look for when they need to get their PROCESS CONTROLLED.
