Optimized material selection for subsea valves to prevent failure and improve reliability
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REVIEW
Optimized material selection for subsea valves to prevent failure and improve reliability Karan Sotoodeh1 Received: 2 July 2020 / Accepted: 13 September 2020 © Society for Reliability and Safety (SRESA) 2020
Abstract The offshore oil and gas industry began in 1947 when Kerr-McGee completed the first “out of the land” well successfully in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana in just 4.6 m of water. Offshore exploration and production technology have been gradually expanded in the decades since, and the venture for finding oil has moved to deep water areas. Subsea valves are mainly located on the wellhead and manifolds and could be ball, through conduit gate and axial check valves. This paper introduces the main types of subsea valves as well as their main components. The suitable materials for different components have been proposed to increase the reliability through mitigating the corrosion risk, improving the mechanical strength, compatibility with the fluid, maintaining the safe operation of the valve over the design life, etc. The proposed materials are used for critical components of the valves such as body, bonnet, disk, seats, pup piece, etc. and the best choices have been summarized at the end of the table. A chart has been developed introducing the key parameters in selecting the optimized material choice for subsea valves such as erosion, corrosion, HSE, process compatibility, etc. Keywords Subsea · Valves · Reliability and failure prevention material and corrosion · Offshore · Oil and gas industry
1 Introduction to subsea production system The offshore oil and gas industry began in 1947 when KerrMcGee completed the first “out of the land” well successfully in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana in just 4.6 m of water (Bai and Bai (2012); Burleson 1999). Offshore exploration and production technology have been gradually expanded in the decades since, and the venture for finding oil has moved to deep water areas (MODEC 2019). Platforms or ships classified as floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) ships have been used for development and production of offshore fields in the water (Sotoodeh 2019a). A subsea production system contains subsea completed wells, subsea wellheads, production trees, and subsea manifolds, as well as equipment and control facilities for well operation (Bai and Bai 2012; Sotoodeh 2019a). Completed wells are those which have been drilled and are ready for production. The pressure-containing components at the
* Karan Sotoodeh [email protected] 1
Manifold Engineering, Baker Hughes, Oslo, Norway
surface of oil and gas wells, collectively called the well head, provide an interface for drilling, completion, and testing of the wells (Sotoodeh 2019a). The surface pressure control of the well head is done during assembly of the valves, pipe, and fitting commonly called a “Christmas Tree” (Sotoodeh 2019a). Subsea manifolds are used to simplify the subsea system by minimizing the usage of a subsea pipeline and risers as well as optimizing the f
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