McDermott Engineers Created the World’s Largest Specialty Valves
Wojciech Zmudzinski, Chief Pipeline Engineer for McDermott (right) with an INPEX Ichthys Project representative during a valve manufacturing inspection at a factory in Italy.
After nearly two years of planning and development McDermott's team has achieved a first of a kind in the valve industry; creating the world’s largest forged body specialty valve, in collaboration with a valve manufacturer. The valves are destined for the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG Project.
“The Ichthys Project umbilical, riser and flowline infrastructure – which will be installed at the Ichthys Field offshore Western Australia - requires connection of the subsea riser base to the 42-inch gas export pipeline going to the onshore LNG processing facility,” explained Jonathan Parkes, McDermott Senior Project Director. “This meant that six 42-inch valves had to be specially designed and fabricated to meet the 40-year design criteria. To our knowledge, these are the world’s largest, single-piece forged, top entry ball valves.”
Each valve measures approximately 9 meters in length and 7 meters high, and weighs more than 100 tonnes. The first valve has been successfully built and tested. The second valve is currently undergoing factory acceptance testing and is expected to be ready in September. Once all six valves have passed factory testing, two will be installed offshore in 270 meters of water, while the remaining four will be installed onshore, one at the landfall block valve and three at the processing facility at Bladin Point.
“This is a great demonstration of client demand driving innovation, and through collaboration, team work and effective Supply Chain Management, on a global scale, we have created an industry first,” commended Tony Duncan, Executive Vice President, Subsea.
