Vibration Control Solutions for Oil Production Companies: A Case Study

The Challenge

An oil production company based in South America was experiencing issues with high vibration in their water injection control valves. They were also experiencing problems with the water injection pumps due to the vibration caused by poor velocity control inside the control valve trim. This customer engages in the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas and has significant investments in oil production fields.

The Solution

For this customer, velocity control was key to avoid high vibration and poor control in the two applications; the minimum flow control valve and the water injection control valve. IMI CCI’s dedicated sales engineers and production team met with the customer and discussed their options.

Unlike traditional control valves, the DRAG® multi-stage, multi-turn technology divides the pressure reduction into many smaller stages. The number of turns, or stages, is selected to ensure a specific fluid discharge velocity is achieved at the exit of the control element. By switching to IMI CCI’s DRAG® technology, in this case the custom 100D DRAG® valve, the customer was able to increase controllability of their water injection stations, resulting in reduced maintenance needs and avoiding costly shutdowns.