Interventek's integrated gas accumulator driven shear-and-seal safety valve - the Revolution PowerPlus
Subsea oil and
gas engineering firm, Interventek, will unveil the development of the
industry’s first subsea shear-and-seal safety valve powered by an integrated
gas accumulator at next week’s Subsea Expo in Aberdeen.
This innovation builds on
Interventek’s existing, award-winning, Revolution valve technology by adding a
gas accumulator within the valve, close to the cutting and sealing mechanism.
It increases the power and speed of the valve’s functionality and provides a failsafe mode triggered
in the event of an emergency.
The new integrated
gas accumulator valve, called the Revolution PowerPlus, will provide a
versatile and compact, but highly critical safety barrier within the BOP (and
below the primary shear rams) during subsea well completion or intervention
operations. The valve will rapidly cut any intervention media such as slickline, braided
electric cable, coiled tubing or coiled tubing with braided electric
cable
and seal the wellbore, containing pressure and allowing the intervention vessel
to disconnect should the need arise.
The increased closing speed, of less
than one second, will improve safety, particularly during gas production, where
the speed of closure and the integrity of the seal directly affects the volume
of gas prevented from escaping. Traditional
safety valves operate at much slower rates and mainly rely on hydraulic fluid
with a power source located further away from the cutting and sealing mechanism,
typically above the BOP shear rams, which take longer to activate.
The compact
nature of this valve is a major advantage, allowing it to be installed below
the shear rams, even on small BOP’s. This means the well can be contained by
the Revolution Valve, without resorting to the shear rams, which are
principally a last line of defence and much more difficult and costly to
remediate after activation. The efficient, compact design is also the reason that
the valve is able to incorporate the gas accumulator power source within its
housing.
“Building on the
success of our core valve technology we are very keen to push the design
envelope further and deliver additional, enabling benefits to industry,” Gavin
Cowie, managing director explained.
He went on to
say: “The speed of closure we have achieved with our PowerPlus valve is
unprecedented and provides significant safety advantages. Incorporating the power source within the
valve is only possible due to the original Revolution Valve design being
extremely efficient, with the cutting and sealing mechanisms contained within a
confined space. We believe this places our technology far ahead of the market
in both performance and reliability, but also, due to our novel design,
operators can take advantage of these benefits for around half the cost of
other solutions.”
The first
prototype 6⅜” 15,000psi working pressure, in-riser landing string Revolution
PowerPlus model has already been developed and is currently undergoing cutting
and sealing qualification tests. It uses resilient primary sealing rather than
elastomer components which enables safe well intervention under more challenging
conditions eg. large well bore, deep water or HPHT scenarios and will be
rated to cut coiled tubing, braided cable and slickline with an automatic,
fail-safe close mechanism, operated via existing control systems.
Interventek are
exhibiting on stand 88 at Subsea Expo which is held at the AECC in Aberdeen, from 5-7th February.
For more information on the Revolution valve, the PowerPlus functionality and the
valve’s numerous subsea well control applications please visit www.interventek.com