Refining
Oil & Gas Refining is a hot, dangerous industry. When processing flammable hydrocarbon materials, combined with pressure and abrasive circulating catalysts – attention to detail is paramount. Cornerstone Valve has solutions for your most extreme refining challenges: 1. DESIGN Cornerstone trunnion mounted ball designs offer the advantage of always rotating –within their own geometry on a fixed ball-stem axis. This means that there is no lateral ball displacement required to move a ball into a fixed seat. Resulting upstream sealing seats allow valve ball/body cavities to be isolated from the particulates in ore slurries – so continuous cavity packing does not occur. (It’s like rotating a broomstick in a pail of sand – easy to rotate about its own axis but harder to displace laterally!) Live loaded scraper seats, smooth full bore flow passages and careful material selections allow Cornerstone valves to operate with minimal flow disruption. 2. Durability Piles of discarded valves, destroyed by severe abrasive/erosive scouring and ball/seat failures are all too common sites at ore processing facilities. Cornerstone trunnion designs offer a far more durable solution. Thru bores that exactly match HDPE liners in adjacent piping and the elimination of turbulence causing diameter changes along a valve’s flow path assist in longevity. Coupled with an attention to solids proofing and material selections, robust solutions are achieved. 3. Reliability All elements in an ore processing facility present valving challenges – whether in transporting slurries, pressure letdown station isolation, dewatering, pneumatic transport or autoclave recovery processes for selected alloys. Downtime costs far more than differential “cost savings” realized by ‘buying cheap’ instead of ‘buying best’ – it’s a process industry. |
CASE STUDY
An FCC catalyst fines separator system manufacturer contacted Cornerstone to produce valves for high temperature and abrasive service. Produced in 1993/94, those valves still operate in a North American refinery without requiring service. Subsequently, valves installed in a number of refineries in both North & South America, in both fines removal and catalyst recirculation systems, remain trouble free. Not one trunnion-mounted SB-2 has required servicing or replacement since installation. |
Cornerstone Products for Refining
• Top Entry Ball Valves • End Entry Ball Valves • Rotary Control Valves • Split Body Ball Valves (SB-2) |
Application Areas:
•High temp block valves for pump isolation, ESD •Catalyst recirculation & extraction (high temp, abrasive) •Heavy coking applications - block & switch valves •Lock Hopper applications •Steam block & control •Heavy oils •Gas to flare •Gasification/Liquefaction •Isolation in FCCU applications •UOP •Hydrocracking •Visbreaking & Coking •Cavitation/noise reduction •Special Metallurgies to meet process requirements •Fractionator bottoms pump isolation •Coal Slurry Handling/ Ash removal •Oil Sands |