Connector Subsea Solutions
The Connector Subsea Distribution team are proud to deliver to our industry the world’s first metal and soft seated 2-inch ball valves rated at 15ksi.
In January 2022, the Subsea Distribution division of Connector Subsea Solutions developed the world’s first compact soft seated 2-inch ball valve rated at 1,035 bar (15,000psi). This product is fully qualified to API 6A PR2F and API 17D, with manufacturing and testing as per API PSL3G.
Following on from this success and the formation of Connector Subsea Distribution, the envelope has now been pushed further by developing and qualifying a metal seated 2-inch ball valve to the same pressure rating and reference standards.
Connector Subsea Distribution (incorporating Norvalves AS) has a long history of supplying 690 bar rated compact 2-inch metal seated ball valves. Our customer did not have an existing vendor who could solve the requirement of a metal seated 1,035 bar rated valve for installation offshore Brazil.
These valves can be used for any challenging subsea application, in this case the customer required high pressure valves for permanent subsea flooding and pig launcher caps.
Our engineers, using their extensive experience with modern analysis techniques, worked closely with key seals and tungsten carbide coating specialists, producing a design that had the same physical dimensions as the existing 690 bar products, whilst meeting industry qualification and testing standards.
Connector Subsea Distribution was chosen due to the level of qualification, ultra-compact design and industry leading zero leakage of both the soft and metal seat sealing systems during gas testing.
Both designs offer the industry significant weight and size reduction compared to traditional ball valve design, thus allowing reductions in system level footprint, and reducing fabrication manufacturing costs for the end user.
The metal seated design ensures resilience to abrasive particulates in the process stream and is unaffected by high volume flooding operations.
Market success continues with a recent significant award for 31 off 2-inch metal seated 1,035 bar rated ball valves for installation offshore Guyana with delivery in June 2023.
Our ball valve product development continues as we extend the range of fully qualified industry leading compact soft seated and metal seated ball valves. 2023 will see the launch of a full small bore product range that includes ½-inch, 1-inch and 2-inch bore sizes.
For more information on this project, please contact Derek Mason, Head of Sales for Connector Subsea Distribution.
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