Types Of Control Valves Used In Oil & Gas Applications

Control Valve type: Globe/Gate/Ball/Butterfly

Actuator:Pneumatic/Electro-pneumatic/Electric

The type of quesion asked - the type answer given

There are a lot of informations about types of control valves and its functions, actuators, and their main designers and manufacturers here:

Control Valves

All The Manufacturers ! www.Directindustry.com

Control valves are critical to any continuous process. Regardless of how good your control system is, regardless of how clever and advanced your control schemes may be – if the control valve isn't the most effective available for the task your process will suffer. Slow, misapplied or sloppy control valves translate a broader range of quality product being produced – your plant makes money on ensuring the product produced is as close to the desired / target level of quality needed for the market. To low and the product needs reprocessing, too high and you are giving away value without compensation.

My field is control valves, my background is heavily oil and gas, and more recently chemical and petro-chemical, I work as a consulting engineer. In every plant there is likely to be a strong preference for one manufacturer or another, and only that manufacturer's products are allowed on site. The problem with that approach is while the large majority of applications can be effectively handled by any manufacturer's products, there are applications for which your preferred vendor does not have even a tolerably suitable valve.

The major players in the industrial Oil and Gas control valve markets include:

Fisher Controls – pervasive in the market. They have good products for routine applications. I don't think anyone ever lost their job for buying Fisher regardless of how poor the fit was. http://www.emersonprocess.com/fisher/products/

Flowserve – Valtek. They have a very strong range of basic products, they have some very interesting advanced products.

http://www.flowserve.com/eim/ProductSearch?prodFamily=044b598559a47010VgnVCM1000005e191eac____&prodClassSearchTerm=4be60d2735ce7010VgnVCM1000005e191eac____&prodTypeSearchTerm=*&prodBrandSearchTerm=VALTK&prodIndustrySearchTerm=*&prodModelSearchTerm=&prodIsSubmit=false&page=0

Masoneilan. I wouldn't use a Masoneilan control valve on a routine application unless the plant wanted it. There are old plants with an installed base of old Masoneilan valves, but I find getting parts and service for them is problematic and the field technicians generally don't like or trust them. The "Engineered Specials" from Masoneilan include some really phenomenal control valves for very difficult applications. I have put these in places were a plant had struggled to get the best Fisher could offer to survive in service 6 weeks, the special Masoneilan valve was put in and watched closely, after two years it was opened up and had no sign of wear. After four years in service it had only minimal wear and that was recognized as being a function of the shop reassembling the valve incorrectly. The details of the application and the way the plant operated for nearly 20 years are shocking, the performance of Fisher in supporting their valve in the application was stellar in that parts were always close at hand, but they were unconscionable in allowing the situation go on that long. That is just one readers' digest version of a range of similar stories.

Flowserve – Kammer. The best control valve in the world bar none. Flowserve wants to pigeon hole this valve as a micro trim small control valve, but they were great in providing multiple 8" angle body control valves with bellows seals. They were low bidder, and their bellows seal is unmatched. I wouldn't buy anyone else's control valve if I needed it to handle a dangerous or valuable fluid. Aside from nasty high dollar chemicals, just think of what your plant looses in steam leaks. The cost of high pressure steam, the damage it can do in escaping, and you need a good bellows seal.

http://www.flowserve.com/eim/ProductSearch?prodFamily=044b598559a47010VgnVCM1000005e191eac____&prodClassSearchTerm=4be60d2735ce7010VgnVCM1000005e191eac____&prodTypeSearchTerm=*&prodBrandSearchTerm=KAMMR&prodIndustrySearchTerm=*&prodModelSearchTerm=&prodIsSubmit=true&page=0

Samson and others are out there, but…

There is a new valve on the market, presently going threw testing.and that is the Butterfly Valve from Gt. Flow control. patented in four countries,closest competitor the Vanessa valve. take a look www.gtflowcontrol.com we are doing the testing right know looks great

You too good man in this field. Will contact you when i come across critical application.

there are many different applications for valves in the oil & gas field, as you well know. the oil & gas companies will specify what there application calls for and then will give you specs to work with. go to any valve company and they will spell out what the valves use dictates. if you have special needs it can be engineered.

take a look at a butterfly valve from Korea,it has patents in four countries and is here in the U.S. the closest valve is the Vanessa from tyco and this valve surpasses the Vanessa and is about half the price. www.gtflowcontrol.com

I agree with Ducon. The question begs for clarity. The oil and gas industry is so broad, with so many facits, it begs for definition in a given circuit or desired function. If it were me, and I was a novice, I would go to a refinery and tag along behind one of the equipment mechanics, and watch and learn.

This is a great device! I found some more information on this website: www.directindustry.com/industrial-manufacturer/control-valve-77050.html