CASE STUDY: Positive Isolation 

Chromatic Cartridge Design Replaces Gate Valves to Deliver Positive and Provable Isolation

Challenge:

The customer produces oil (and gas) from mature fields via an enhanced (tertiary) recovery process. They alternate, in seven day periods, injecting CO2 and water into the formation.The customer initiated new engineering standards requiring positive and provable isolation. its Tprior solution was not able to support the new requirements so they turned to Chromatic.

Solution:

The specific installation for the HCV Valve was to replace previously used gate valves because of a new internally imposed requirement by the end-user’s engineering group where these valves were required to provide positive/provable isolation (Double Block and Bleed). Historically, the failure mode of the gate valves were the inability to positively isolate the CO2 from water allowing the development of residual carbonic acid damaging valve bodies and seals.

Valves Supplied
Size 2″, 3″, and 4″ ANSI 900 and 1500 class
Body Material WCC Carbon steel with electrolysis nickel plating
Internals Carbon steel with electrolysis nickel plating
Trim Teflon seat with Peroxide Cured Buna N seals
Port Full Port
Connections Raised Face Flanged and Ring Type Joint
Service Conditions
Media Mixture of CO2, water and formation particulates
Supporting Enhanced Recovery Positive Isolation

Result:

Chromatic initially supplied two 2” ANSI 1500 Class block valves in April 2008 for testing purposes. Valves performed satisfactorily over the span of the following year. The customer installed six (6) 4” ANSI 600 Class, Double Block and Bleed valves to test the reliability of the DBB design. After the successful testing, the customer has placed multiple orders with a cumulative count of more than 400 valves in their West Texas fields worth more than $1 million dollars of installed HCV Valves.