BAC Valves – resilience and excellence in the global market

Founded in 1958, BAC Valves designs, manufactures, and sells high-quality ball and butterfly valves for the chemical, petrochemical, gas and processing industries. With the company celebrating its 66th anniversary this year, Valve World spoke to Operations Director Esteve Bernal and Managing Director Carles Bach about how the company has focused on quality while specialising in quarter-turn valves. 

By Joanne McIntyre, Valve World

Based in Catalonia, Spain, over the past six and a half decades, BAC has built up a strong client base in the global oil & gas, petrochemical and chemical industries.

“My father, Emili Bach, founded the company 66 years ago,” explains Mr Bach. “Initially, he had a clear mission to specialise in ball valves. In the early 1990s, we introduced high-performance double eccentric butterfly valves to complement our existing focus on quarter-turn valves. Currently we are focused in delivering highly engineered solutions to our customers.”

Over the decades, BAC has developed great technical capabilities and strengths in designing, manufacturing and selling commodity quarter-turn ball and butterfly valves. Strong and steady growth over the years has enabled it to support local industries while also establishing a wide base of export clients all over the world.

Demanding client base

As the petrochemical industry grew and demand for quality valves increased, BAC focused on gaining approvals from major international companies in order to continue growing globally while meeting customer demands. It worked closely with customers to develop a product offering that perfectly matched evolving demand within the petrochemical industry in Europe and further afield.

“We have always focused on valve design and quality manufacturing. Our products comply with the latest and most demanding specifications,” adds Mr Bernal.

“Our product development strategy is based on quality engineered products and designs. Our team has great expertise in every component of these valves.”

BAC Valves’ speciality products are quarter-turn valves and ball valves, ranging from cryogenic valves to metal seated, high-temperature valves.

“High alloy and high-pressure valves for severely corrosive applications for oil & gas industry are also within our expertise,” continues Mr Bernal.

“Today, over 3,000,000 BAC valves have been installed in facilities around the globe. Our products have been used by almost every process company in the world, particularly in the oil and gas sectors and LPG and LNG gas carriers.”

Quality manufacturing in-house

With quality being such an important focus for the BAC team, it is no surprise that all design is carried out in-house at the Catalonia production facility. “Within our pool of one hundred staff, over forty of these are engineers,” explains

“Over 3,000,000 Bac valves are installed in facilities around the globe.”

Mr Bach. “When we need new employees, we take in engineering graduates and train them on-site, instilling in them our company culture where quality and expertise is paramount.” “We regularly see competitors coming onto the market claiming that they can produce everything from metal seated to cryogenic valves overnight, but the customers know they can rely on our expertise for quality. For 66 years, we have invested a lot of time, effort, testing, and research into developing our products and ensuring that what we produce is in line with our customers’ needs. It may take a little time, but they know our valves will run smoothly for many years.”

Superior cryogenic ball valves

In 2017 BAC introduced the Cryoseat® ball valve, which was developed in response to demand for a reliable cryogenic trunnion-mounted ball valve. Under cryogenic operation, the diverse components of a valve, both soft and hard materials with different geometry and thicknesses, behave and interact differently. The BAC team set out to solve this challenging engineering problem in a reliable manner.

The Cryoseat® is a cryogenic valve seat sealing solution and patented seat design that can be implemented into what can be considered the new generation of cryogenic ball valves. The functioning principle is innovative and, at the same time, very straightforward. The design implies a combination of materials, shapes and design geometry that is suitable to handle the required pressure levels, and be tight within a quite wide range of temperatures and pressures with long lifecycle and stable performance. It includes some soft and hard components, which are carefully selected and designed to be activated and functioning when needed. Cryoseat® performs well at both low and high pressures. Every detail in the design is crafted to make the valve as efficient as possible under the combination of pressure and temperature.

The state-of-the-art design allows for cryogenic valves that can handle pressure in a bi-directional manner, which means that configurations such as SPEDPE for a trunnion-mounted ball valve, as well as a single-seat bi-directional (SSB) for both trunnion mounted and floating ball valve, can be easily achieved. The design has been also validated to perform with a C-shape eccentric ball construction, lowering the wear and torque, and can be installed in both a top entry or side entry valve.

Stringent requirements

“The Cryoseat® is among the most advanced sealing technology for cryogenic ball valves you can find in LNG in the market right now,” explains Mr Bach.

“Looking to other applications, we are developing a range of high-pressure metal seated valves in higher alloys for the oil and gas market. The materials that we work with include Hastelloy, Inconel and duplex stainless steel. We have many years of experience in designing and working with these materials. Our engineering capabilities mean we have the knowledge in-house to produce high quality valves for demanding applications. We also offer a high degree of flexibility and service to our customers to meet their needs, no matter now stringent the requirements may be.”

This deep expertise is underpinned by BAC’s focus on quarter-turn valves. “We don’t try to produce every kind of valve; we are specialists who produce a specific range to the highest standard.”

The company’s high-performance double eccentric butterfly valves are used for demanding applications and, in addition to the materials mentioned, are also produced in titanium and 6-Mo. “We engineer products in various niches to a very high standard.”

Project focus

As a longstanding global supplier of valves for a large variety of oil & gas and (petro) chemical companies, BAC has gravitated towards supplying projects. “Our valves have been used in projects across the globe, from Europe to the Middle East to South America,” explains Mr Bach.

“Looking to the future, we are currently working on evolving our cryogenic LNG valve technology for the emerging hydrogen economy, for example liquid hydrogen valves with cryoseat technology and low torque eccentric valves. We see some promising developments emerging in that area.”

Manufacturing locations

As a global supplier, BAC Valves recognises the importance of being able to quickly supply products to its customers, wherever they may be located.

“We have a licenced manufacturing facility for our valves in Saudi Arabia to ensure a strong level of local content both for our client Aramco, and for the Middle East region in general,” explains Mr Bernal.

“In 2023 we opened a factory in Dalian, China to service customers there. Being able to produce locally significantly reduces transport time and reduces the CO2 footprint of deliveries. We produce commodity valves in Dalian in compliance with their local Codes and standards.”

BAC Valves is also actively promoting its high end valves in the USA to service customers in the Americas with the aim to move to a production facility. “Providing local content means we are able to lower our CO2 footprint and reduce lead times.”

Global coverage and service

To ensure global coverage, BAC Valves works with multiple distribution channels, explains Mr Bach. “We essentially have three distribution channels: one is direct with the end user, the second is through distributors, and the third important distribution channel is through EPC contractors and engineering companies that work for the end customers.”

BAC also provides supporting services to their customers. “In addition to the engineering that we do in-house based on the clients’ requirements, we offer a huge range of special tests such as cryogenic tests, fugitive emission tests, hydrostatic, high temperature and so on. Looking at our after-sales market, we give our warranty for our products and we have a team dedicated to helping customers on site if required.”

Resilience and flexibility

Mr Bach is justifiably proud of how the company’s business philosophy ensures that it is resilient to change and market forces, while remaining flexible enough to meet and evolve with its customer needs. “In recent years, events such as the pandemic and the sudden drop in oil and gas prices have tested us, and we have emerged triumphant on each occasion. We have proven our resilience to our customers, to ourselves, and to our staff.

We decided not to downsize our staff at all during these downturns to keep our people and know-how. As a company we are adaptable, and while we can grow easily in good years we are also strong enough to withstand the occasional down-turns that the industry encounters. We are a resilient company and will be around for many more decades to come, supplying high-quality valves to our customers around the world.”

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