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With low oil prices around 50$ a barrel are end user extra requirements to international standards justified? Or is it costly gold plating?

Inefficient sealing of valve glands constitutes the largest contributor to fugitive emissions in a process plant, affecting all types of valves (control, block, ball, butterfly etc).

Many of the valvemakers in the Czech Republic seem to be doing very well for themselves, with reports of significant investments in machinery, the opening of offices and production units overseas as well as announcements of major orders being won. Valve World therefore decided to travel to the East of the country to ask several companies if they could explain the reasons behind this success.

The market for valves for use in NOx control is expanding at a rapid rate. The reagents used to reduce NOx are urea, ammonia, or hydrogen peroxide. Some new technologies being discussed in McIlvaine webinars include a combination of technologies.

The petroleum and chemical industries have been looking for meaningful standards that will enable the qualification of valves and packings that meet the increasingly stringent fugitive emission regulations, which have increased since the 1990s. The focus has been on the main source of the emissions—valve stem packing...

Current SPE and DPE designs as used in the past and in today’s cryogenic trunnion ball valves are challenged to an almost impossible task. And with LNG becoming more and more popular as a clean fuel it makes sense to eliminate as far as possible the leakage of methane. In addition to protecting the environment, a leak free valve is also a serious safety feature when operating highly flammable gas like LNG..

In the February 2016 issue of Valve World we ran an interview with Mr. Henk Hinssen, Mr. Hinssen indicated he had uncovered serious shortcomings in many emergency shutdown valves (ESDV) used to enhance safety in upstream plants. Looking for more expert views on this topic, Valve World spoke to Ed Holtgraver, one of the founders of QTRCO, about his concerns with Partial Stroke Test

No clear or universal industry definition or mechanism exists to describe and accurately define severe service valves (SSVs) from general purpose valves, yet such a definition would allow clients to benefit from improved process performance, increased profitability, safety and environmental protection. This high level paper looks to offer an objective definition for better communication between users, specifiers and suppliers.

Valves don’t necessarily need to be made from, for example, stainless steel, or grey cast iron. Plastic valves are used in numerous areas to convey fluids through pipes, and they need not shy away from uncomfortable environments.

The sharp decline in crude prices and the subsequent volatility has meant that it’s been an onerous two years for oil producers, a period marked with budget cuts. The situation for the offshore side of the business has been far more severe. Once hailed as the bulwark from peak oil, the massive costs associated with its development in the face of low margins have made it increasingly difficult for companies to commit investments in recent times. Anurag Agrawal reports.