Deep Water Subsea Ball Valves

By David R. Mefford, P.E. Vice-President Engineering Cameron

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DEEPWATER SUBSEA BALL VALVES With the growing development of deep water oil and gas fields and the increasing need for larger bore, higher pressure valves, a move to consider ball valves as another option to traditional gate valve solutions has been growing in popularity. With improvements in seals and materials, the reliability of ball valves has reached a point where they must be considered as viable options to gate valves in many subsea applications.

The Gate Valve Tradition When people think of deepwater valve applications, API 6A gate valves typically come to mind because the first ventures into subsea at any depth have been exploration drilling. Typical BOP (blowout preventer) choke and kill stack valves will be 3-1/16 10,000 or 15,000 psi API 6A gate valves. When operators elect to develop an oil & gas field using subsea completions rather than installing a surface-piercing structure (fixed bottom platform, TLP or spar), Christmas Trees will be placed directly on top of the subsea wellhead. Virtually all subsea Christmas tree valves are comprised of gate valves ranging in sizes from 1-13/16 to 6-3/8 bores. These valves are covered by API 17D, which are API 6A valves with additional requirements for subsea usage. Until recently, a large subsea completion would utilize 7 tubulars and 6-3/8 bore valves (NB: One or two 9 inch completions are being considered). For many years, the most common size trees installed in the North Sea were 5-1/8 5000 psi working pressure (wp). Large completions in the Gulf of Mexico have been 4-1/16 bores. The migration to completions installed in deeper water and at distances far from shallow water host facilities has resulted in 10,000 psi completions becoming common and 15,000 psi completions already a reality. It should be noted that there are numerous 20,000 psi land completions and there were even a few 30,000 psi land completions in the early 80s, so the basic gate valve design and sealing technology was already in place. It just needed to be able to get wet.and go deep.

Subsea Manifolds Subsea production from a number of satellite wells has led to the need for subsea manifolds (See Figure 1). With the initial move to ultra deep fields, the target depth for developing technology was 10,000 feet with products and technology being developed generally in the order they were needed. Therefore, the first equipment qualified for deepwater use was drilling and exploration wellhead, followed by completion equipment, and then production equipment. As the need for subsea manifolds materialized, a logical choice for the valve requirements were gate valves. It is for subsea manifolds that the advantages of ball valves began to receive serious consideration. However, industrys lack of confidence in the long-term reliability of ball valves in production service versus the successful track record of gate valves has limited their use in subsea applications.

Figure 1: Subsea Manifold

Ball Valves in Subsea Ball valves have been used for many years in subsea applications. Downstream of the production Christmas trees, ball valves were first used on land with the development of the gas industry and gas pipeline valves. Up to that time, pipelines were liquid only and pipeline gate valves were the standard. Even today it is typical to see gate valves specified for liquid pipelines and ball valves specified for gas pipelines. Both configurations have significantly different requirements from the drilling and Christmas tree valves both in pressure and size. Common pipeline pressures are generally in the 1000 to 2000 psi range with sizes up to 48 in the Americas and 56 in such regions as the FSU and Algeria. When gas wells were completed in the Gulf of Mexico in the 60s, ball valves were installed in pipelines both as isolation valves and as terminal valves to tie-in lateral lines from future wells and platforms. This system of subsea pipelines brought gas from the Gulf into Louisiana and Texas for processing and distribution. In the late 70s ball valves were installed in the North Sea and problems occurred. Valves were specified based on the product they were to carry like non-corrosive oil or gas. In fact, the harsh conditions of the North Sea meant that piping and valves had as much as two years exposure to raw seawater before commissioning. Valves trimmed for the final production conditions did not stand up to the months or years of conditions during construction. As an example, one of the early pipelines had over 100 tons of debris pigged from the pipeline when commissioned and every valve leaked. This created considerable rethinking on the design and use of ball valves in subsea applications.

Later, ball valves were installed subsea as ESD (Emergency Shutdown) valves to prevent gas in a pipeline from flowing back to a platform in the event of a major leak (See Figure 2). This practice became law in the UK sector of the North Sea after the Piper Alpha disaster in which a failure on the platform allowed gas to flow back and the gas cloud eventually ignited.

Figure 2: 24 1500 ANSI North Sea ESD Valve Large subsea manifolds were designed in the early 90s and there were some sizes only a pipeline valve could meet. Some users began developing a preference for ball valves. While subsea drilling and production Christmas tree valves had many years of proven experience, pipeline gate valves had less experience in subsea applications than ball valves and there were many advantages for choosing a ball valve.

Ball Valve /Gate Valve Comparison There are both strengths and weaknesses of one valve type against another when comparing designs and their intended application. Rarely does one design provide THE perfect answer. For some applications, there are a number of benefits that a ball valve provides over an API 6A gate valve that would potentially make it the best choice. Some of the features to consider are size, weight, height, speed of operation, seal wear, weldability, depth sensitivity, ROV intervention, fluid displacement during operation, and low pressure sealing.

Size As flow lines are brought together at the manifold, the headers and pipelines increase in size. Where API 6A valves are considered large at 6-3/8 bores, pipe sizes of 10 inch to 18 inch are commonly utilized. The larger size is no problem for ball valves; however there is a pressure issue. Due to the need to consider the possible failure of the choke or valves on the Christmas tree, the manifold valves are usually required to carry the same pressure rating as the tree valves. Where size is a real challenge for the 6A gate valves, the increasing need for 10,000 psi ball valves has been the biggest development effort for ball valves. Its a trade off between pressures that are common for gate valves (but sizes which are not) versus the common sizes for ball valves but with a much shorter track record in service up to 10,000 psi. For both valve types, the design rules of the past are being rewritten to optimize new designs. Size has revealed another anomaly in subsea manifolds for all valves. Specifications are calling for 5000 or 10,000 psi valves meeting API 6A or 17D requirements in pipeline sizes that do not exist in either specification. Where a 5-1/8 or 6-3/8 6A valve size defines the bore, pipe sizes are utilized in manifolds and other downstream piping, and pipe is defined by the outside diameter. A manifold specification calling for 8 10,000 psi valves will likely be met with a valve having a 6-3/8 inch bore. The pipe grade and wall thickness must be known to properly select the valves. Table 1 below compares some typical API 6A sizes and heavy wall pipe.

Nom. Pipe Size 2 3 4 6 8 10 12 16

Std. Valve Bore as per API 6A 10K Flanges 1-13/16 2-1/16 2-9/16 4-1/16 5-1/8 7-1/16 9 11 13-5/8 Table 1

Reference: Sch. 160 Pipe I.D. 1.689 2.624 3.438 5.189 6.813 8.500 10.126 12.814

Weight Depending on the specific design approach, ball valves can be significantly lighter than gate valves. Since gate valves are always top entry design and they stroke up and down to open and close, the body center piece must be long enough to allow the gate to fully stroke. This fundamental design requirement, combined with the top entry feature, will inherently create the heaviest valve. On the other hand, a ball valve only rotates about an axis so the body is shorter relative to the piping. Ball valves come in four body styles: welded body, two-piece bolted body, three-piece bolted body and top entry. A welded body ball valve can be as little as half the weight of a gate valve and a two or three-piece ball valve somewhat less than a gate valve. A top entry ball valve could actually weigh more than a gate valve depending on size and pressure. The top entry outlet to receive the full spherical diameter of a ball is greater than that for a gate and this offsets the longer body of the gate valve. Concerns over reliability due to the North Sea problems in the late 70s drove some major operators to develop and specify subsea retrievable valves and subsea insert retrievable valve internals. After spending several million dollars to develop these valves, few were ever purchased. As the reliability of ball valves improved, users focused on top entry subsea valves and more recently favor the welded body designs because of the significant weight savings and minimal leak paths. For aggressive service where non-ferrous or super duplex materials are required, the welded body designs have limitations and a take apart design is needed. For deepwater and high pressure service, two and three-piece body designs are not a good solution due to the extra leak paths and the bending loads being transferred into the body bolting. Despite the weight penalty, that leaves top entry valves as the most viable option for exotic trims.

Height Gate valves incur the greatest height penalty. The longer body has already been discussed, but in addition to this the actuator of a gate valve runs vertical of the gate and must also stroke the same distance as the gate. A ball valve requires only a quarter turn to open and to close. Ball valve actuators are mounted close to the top of the valve and the stroking runs parallel to the piping. Even the helical and vane style ball valve actuators are shorter than equivalent gate valve actuators. This height difference for equivalent valve functionality has offered significant cost savings when ball valves are used in a subsea structure. This feature, combined with the weight savings of a welded body ball valve design, can result in appreciable cost savings to the overall project.

Speed of Operation Other than during ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) intervention, most subsea valves are hydraulically actuated. (It should be noted, however, that the development of complete electrically operated subsea and surface trees is nearing reality.) As water depth increases and hydraulic control lines become very long, the response time to react to a signal and time to stroke valves become excessive. To reduce time, control systems and actuator designs have increased from 1500 psi in the 70s to 3000 psi in the 80s. Most deepwater applications now utilize 5000 psi control system pressure. This reduces the piston size and consequently the swept volume of any valve. Clever designs allowing the hydraulic fluid to transfer from one side of the piston to the other have also improved the speed of operation. If a really fast closing time is required, a ball valve with only a quarter of a turn to close is the fastest. Some of the ESD ball valves installed in the North Sea in the late 80s had special slam shut actuators that closed in as little as one second. This makes ball valves an attractive candidate for the new HIPPS (High Integrity Pipeline Protection System) valves.

Stem Seal Wear Ball valves generally have only one mechanism for stem seal wear. The stem rotates a quarter of a turn to open and a quarter of a turn to close. Gate valves have two mechanisms causing stem wear. The most common gate valve is the rising stem type, however, an ROV operated non-rising stem manual style will sometimes be used. The non-rising stem puts considerable wear on the stem seal. For example, a 6-3/8 gate valve may require as many as 30 turns to open or close versus a quarter of a turn for a ball valve. At high pressures, testing has shown that linear movement reduces wear on stem seals, with one notable exception. Rising stem gate valves move the stem from inside the flow environment to outside. Any contamination, scaling or other material could pass through or damage the stem seal. During the 80s, it became a popular requirement for many operators in the North Sea to require metal-to-metal stem seals. While these make very poor stem seals over long periods, they did act as excellent scraper rings protecting the standard seals. Further development of the non-metallic gate valve stem seals has taken place since the 80s and metal stem seals are now rarely specified. Ball valves utilizing gate valve stem seal technology provide outstanding reliability.

Weldability For manifold valve applications, there is a preference to integrate piping and valves by welding to save weight, eliminate leak paths and create a stronger connection. Having not been designed originally for pipeline applications, API 6A and 17D gate valves have two limitations. First, they are designed to use high strength, low alloy steel bodies requiring stress relieving which may lead to possible distortion or damage to internals. After FAT (Factory Acceptance Testing), valves may have to be disassembled for installation and then reassembled and tested after stress relieving. Additionally, where ball valves have floating seats, 6A and 17D gate valves rely on very flat and parallel seat pockets for effective sealing. Distortion of valve bodies from welding has led to the use of special spool pieces and other means that add complexity and leak paths to a gate valve. Pipeline ball valves use materials that are designed for welding into pipework and weld ends per ISO 14313 must have a Carbon Equivalency no greater than .43 using the long formula (i.e., CE equals C + Mn/6 + (Cr+Mo+V)/5+(Ni+Cu)/15). They can be welded into the line without stress relieving or supplied with pups already attached to allow a simple pipe-to-pipe weld.

Depth Sensitivity Subsea hydraulic actuators are typically single acting. Pressure is applied to stroke the valve and hold it open. The loss of hydraulic control pressure will allow a spring to return the valve to its original position (i.e., Fail-close Type). Gates valves are intrinsically failsafe since the rising stem is actually sized, not for strength, but to act as a piston with internal pressure to return the valve to the fail-close position. In deepwater applications, this can result in the requirement for huge springs. Under certain conditions in 10,000 feet of water there could be over 4400 psi external hydrostatic pressure acting on the stem to open the gate valve with little or no internal pressure. Add to that another 50 psi acting on the entire actuator piston area due to a 100 foot platform height above the water and springs with thousands of pounds of force are needed to keep the valve from self-opening. Other than platform height, ball valve actuators are unaffected either by increasing water depth or the possibility of having lower pressure inside the valve than outside.

ROV Intervention Some of the desirable features in surface pipeline ball valves are now being incorporated in deepwater ball valves. The capability for double block and bleed along with sealant injection for stem and seat seals are currently being built into ROV interface panels mounted on the ball valve (See Figure 3).

Figure 3: Subsea Valve with ROV Panel

With the increased torque availability of modern ROVs, the quarter-turn feature of ball valves allows for lower cost, higher reliability operations to be performed. Where valves are rarely operated, they are being installed in deepwater with no actuator or gearbox. ROVs can remove a simple protection cover, dock into a reaction plate and open or close the ball valve. There is no additional actuator cost or reliability to consider since this capability is located on the ROV, which returns to the surface.

Fluid Displacement During Operation One of the advantages of ball valves over gate valves is fluid displacement. Gate valves actually have two modes of fluid displacement. The first is pumping fluid in and out of the valve body during stroking. Unless the valve has a tail rod to offset the rising stem volume, fluid is displaced from the body as the stem enters and must return as the stem rises. This is generally not a significant valve performance issue except in viscous services like drilling mud or if two-piece split or expanding gates are used.

The second mode of displacement is actually becoming an important issue in deepwater. When a gate valve strokes, the fluid must be transferred from one end of the gate to the other end of the gate. Although the situation is rare, debris such as sand may build up in the cavity causing the valve to stall and not fully stroke. More recently however, the most significant deepwater issue is the formation of hydrate blockages in valves that completely prevent operation. Various techniques of methanol injection and other chemicals are being utilized, but it is still a problem. Ball valves sweep the same path going open or closed and the two displacement modes seen in gate valves do not exist in ball valves.

Low Pressure Sealing One of the undesirable by-products of mixing pipeline and Christmas tree specifications is the inconsistency in pressure test requirements. For example, if a low pressure test is specified for an API 6A/17D 10,000 psi gate valve, the pressure is 500 to 1000 psi (510% of working pressure). For API 6D, a low-pressure test is specified as 80 psi air. A common deepwater requirement for today is to specify a 10 10,000 psi valve meeting API 17D, PSL3 with an 80 psi air test. Besides the issue that the 10 valve size does not exist in 6A or 17D, it is very difficult to design a dynamic seal interface to seal bubble tight at 80 psi which does not also overstress the interface at 10,000 psi. Whether 80 psi sealing is truly needed or not, designers are finding that the upstream sealing, floating seat designs used in trunnion mounted ball valves are meeting this challenge.

Reliability Reliability has been saved to the last since that has been the greatest concern of those wanting to take advantage of other ball valve features. API 6A gate valves located on top of the wellhead see the most arduous service conditions. Over the last two decades, two areas of technology improvements have made gate valves more reliable: non-metallic seal development and mechanically bonded coatings. First, there was the move away from elastomers exposed to the flow media. Whether using fluoroelastomers, hydrogenated nitriles or other elastomer seal materials, there is always some substance in the well stream or temperature condition that may cause performance degradation of elastomer compounds. It is virtually impossible to select an elastomer suitable for service in CO2, H2S, chlorides, aromatic hydrocarbons, acids, amine inhibitors, methanol, di-methyl disulfide and water along with temperature extremes. Also, these factors change with time and therefore the knowledge does not exist to predict precisely what the future requirements will be. Todays best gate valve designs primarily utilize metal-to-metal closure seals and various fills of PTFE or PEEK for dynamic seals.

The second area is the gate coating. Metal-to-metal sealing was already a standard feature in the 60s and 70s with overlays like Stellite 6 and Colmonoy 5; however these coatings would, at best, achieve surface hardness in the lower 50s on the Rockwell C scale. In the early 80s, various deposition techniques were developed to apply tungsten carbide at high velocity and mechanically bond them to the metal substrate. Through the 80s, gate valve manufacturers lived through a number of failures usually in the form of blistering, disbonding and porosity of the tungsten carbide coating. Through rigorous testing, the type of gun, coating chemistry and consistent processing were determined to be the critical factors. These are now continually monitored and the reliability among the top 6A gate valve suppliers is well known. Ball valves for deepwater are following the same path as gates valves in achieving superior reliability. A number of suppliers have eliminated elastomer seals and plastics like PTFE, PEEK, Ryton, Nylon 12, Nylon 6 and Tefzel are commonly used. In some cases, the work could stop here as ball valves with PEEK seat inserts have performed very well in sandy service. However, the latest step is to go purely metal-to-metal and be able to successfully apply and finish mechanically bonded tungsten carbide to balls and seat rings. In this case, the finishing and nondestructive verification of the finish has been the challenge. To get a consistent metal seal on a gate valve, gates had to be flat within millionths on an inch. That can be converted to light bands and measured with optical flats. However, balls are spherical and to specify a ball to be finished to 50 millionths of an inch sphericity, for example, it must currently be by qualifying and controlling a process that is capable of achieving 50 millionths repeatedly. There are now suppliers who can do this. Conclusion There are deepwater applications for which ball valves can provide operational and cost advantages over gate valves. Improvements in non-metallic seals and coatings are raising the reliability of ball valves to the point where users are now specifying ball valves and their use is growing in deeper water depths. Already, several consortiums are looking at ball valves for hot tapping existing pipelines in 10,000 feet and mud pumping manifolds in 10,000 feet for under balanced drilling (See Figure 4).

Figure 4: Deep Water Hot Tapping System with Ball Valve

References: Stellite - Stoody Deloro Stellite, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri Colmonoy - Wall Colmonoy Corporation, Madison Heights, Michigan Ryton - Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, Houston, Texas Tefzel - E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Company Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware

David R. Mefford, P.E. Vice-President Engineering Cameron www.c-a-m.com