Shumate Industries Updates Hemiwedge Cartridge Valve Progress
Conroe, TX - Shumate Industries, Inc. a technology-oriented energy field services company, and its Hemiwedge Valve Corporation (HVC) subsidiary recently announced its progress with the adoption of its Hemiwedge Cartridge valve technology in the marketplace.
The Hemiwedge Cartridge valve's primary feature is its ‘cartridge design' whereby all the valve's internal parts are affixed to the bonnet allowing quick and easy serviceability and reducing expensive downtime during maintenance. An equally important feature is the mechanical wedge seating which provides bubble-tight shutoff at both low and high pressures.
The Hemiwedge Cartridge valve's primary purpose is on-off control in production and process control applications within the oil and gas and other industries. Applications where the product is installed today include the following:
- CO2 injection block valve for enhanced oil recovery in west Texas,
- Drilling mud flow loop at a major energy services company,
- Critical shutoff valve in a salt dome storage cavern for butane for a major southwest-based company,
- Block valves for gas storage wells in the US Northeast with a large mid-stream company,
- Block valves for sour gas gathering lines for a major gas pipeline and processing company.
These applications and services have been identified by HVC as target opportunities because the Hemiwedge Cartridge valve's features are uniquely suited for these applications. These features include a mechanical seal in which a hemispherical closure member (the "Hemi") first rotates and then wedges into the seat to provide a positive, bi-directional, bubble-tight shutoff every time the valve is operated. The constant, fixed position of the core within the Hemi provides protection of the seating surfaces and minimizes turbulence during operation compared to other valve designs. In addition, the Hemiwedge Cartridge valve is a quarter-turn design providing low emissions and quick operation in emergency shutdown and other critical shutoff applications.
HVC's sizes and pressure classes for the Hemiwedge Cartridge valve today include, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 inch full and reduced port in ANSI 150 through 600 Class pressures, in both carbon steel and stainless steel. The 2 inch is also available in 900 Class.
HVC's extensive and aggressive development program is currently focused on size and pressure class expansion of the product line, enhanced seat designs, enhanced packing designs for demanding fugitive emissions requirements, and high alloy material options for the petrochemical and chemical industries. HVC is in the process of applying a unique metal-seated, zero-leakage design recently developed for its sub-sea high pressure valve to the standard production Hemiwedge Cartridge valve.
According to Stan Allen, HVC's Senior Vice President of Technology and Business Development, the combination of a mechanically wedge feature of the Hemiwedge Cartridge valve and a zero leakage all-metal-seat provides a combination which meets specific demands in both process and production applications within the oil and gas and related industries. "We are focusing on developing the features that meet our client's specific application needs," Mr. Allen stated.
Ken Chickering, HVC's President, stated, "The industrial valve market in the United States and worldwide is enjoying robust growth particularly in the areas of our focus. The process and production applications that we target are those that our product provides value in the form of reliability and serviceability."
SOURCE: Shumate Industries, Inc.