The obvious design driver is the hydrostatic load on the valve. BEL Valves solutions have evolved from incremental developments, tried and tested over a number of years.
Going back to 1992 designs were proven at water depths in the region of 500m, moving to 2002 producing fields were getting deeper 1,500m and now in 2012 designs have been tested to 3000m water depth and beyond in combination with high pressures.
The confidence that this brings to BEL valves’ customers cannot be overrated especially when considering a significant factor, reliability.
At such depths repairs do not exist. If something goes wrong the field may stop producing for some time so operators choose suppliers whose products have a long and reliable pedigree at depth.
