23 December 2008
The majority of valves are manufactured to the traditional ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) B16.34 standard, but due to the extreme pressures of this project, Oliver Twinsafe Valves recommended the API valve to not only provide increased performance levels, but reduce weight and costs. The ASME standard caters for pressures mainly up to 6,250 psi, but as oil becomes harder to extract and operations need to drill deeper, pressure ratings also increase. The API standard can cater for pressures up to 15,000 psi, more than double the ASME standard, so is a more appropriate standard for deepwater operations. In addition to its increased pressure rating, an API manufactured valve also offers a considerable weight saving; a typical ASME 10” class 25,000lb valve weighs 3.5 tonne compared with the API 11” 5,000lb valve which weighs 1.5 tonne, providing a weight saving of two tonnes. This weight saving in turn reduces the manufacturing costs by over 30 per cent. Oliver Twinsafe Valves deputy chairman, Mark Oliver said: ‘The API standard is something we are advising customers to consider as the needs of the industry change; as oil becomes more difficult to extract operators need to go deeper, so pressures are increasing and the ASME standard simply does not cater for this.
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