Severn Glocon’s Control valves are engineered to meet the stringent requirements of ISO 15848-1, specifically achieving Class A certification for fugitive emissions for pressure ratings up to #2500 which is best-in-class. ISO 15848-1 sets rigorous standards, classifying valve performance based on their ability to contain emissions.

Conventionally, Class A packings are required when any Mutagenic Carcinogenic chemicals, methane, toxic media, hazardous gases and sour gases are suspected to be evident. It is reported that the Oil & Gas industry is responsible for 15% of global energy-related Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Due to this reported figure, it becomes vital to address these emissions through valves.

Why is ISO 15848-1 Critical for Fugitive Emissions?

This ISO standard evaluates valve sealing performance against fugitive emissions, which can be unintended leaks of volatile or hazardous gases. The certification involves multiple tests, including temperature and pressure cycling, as well as leak rate assessments. Notably, Severn’s valves are capable of meeting the highest (Class A) for stem and body seals, ensuring leak rates remain minimal which is crucial for handling hydrogen sulphide-rich sour gas applications in the Oil & Gas sector.

Technical Aspects:

Severn Glocon’s compliance with Class A specifications under ISO 15848-1 includes advanced seal design that undergoes stringent helium detection testing. In these tests, valves are exposed to high pressures, and leak rates are assessed using sensitive equipment like a helium mass spectrometer leak detector (MSLD). The rigorous testing provides assurance of valve integrity, even under extreme thermal cycling, mechanical cycling, and varying pressures.

Meeting the Challenges of Sour Service with Fugitive Emissions with Leakage Rate A:

Valves in sour service handle gasses containing H₂S, which is both highly toxic and corrosive. Severn’s use of specialised materials and advanced sealing techniques ensures resilience against corrosion and leak prevention. This positioning enables Severn to offer reliable solutions that comply with the environmental regulations, prevent harmful emissions, and support the sustainability objectives of Oil & Gas operators.

Ready for High-Sour Service Applications

Severn Glocon’s valves, equipped with FE Gland Packing, are capable of withstanding the highly corrosive environments typical in sour gas applications. The materials and unique sealing mechanisms ensure reliability and minimise corrosion between the stem and packing material, reducing the frequency of maintenance while ensuring top-tier emissions control.

Contact the Severn team of experts for best-in-class engineering assistance with your valve operational issues:

Operators are under increasing pressure to reduce fugitive emissions for both onshore and offshore assets in order to achieve their core imperatives of safe operations and minimum downtime. Severn realises the role they play in today’s climate conscious world to help reduce and eliminate fugitive emissions from valves. Utilising the engineering heritage and extensive knowledge in severe service applications, Severn ensures it can offer the most suitable product for the end user.

Through Severn’s ‘Repair Intelligence’ and close operating relationships with end user operators, Severn has been able to understand the difficulties facing operations in the specification, purchasing and servicing of Control, Choke and Butterfly valves that are critical to reducing fugitive emissions across industrial facilities. Severn prides itself in offering technical solutions that perform no matter how severe or critical the application is. Ensuring that the end user gains the best valve performance and reduced maintenance costs over the lifecycle of the valve.

It has long been understood that approximately 60% of fugitive emissions come from valves. Even more so 80% of those emissions are related to the stem/shaft seal. Naturally, the focus is on this area with the relative fugitive emissions standards such as API 622 and ISO 15848. What is often misunderstood is the requirement for the standards to be applicable across varying temperature and pressure differentials. For this reason, Severn has 43 different certificates for sealing systems in valves based on their application requirements, up to 10,000 Psi and 425ºC. By utilising a range of materials from filled graphite through to custom PTEE-based compounds, Severn has, coupled with novel packing designs, been able to achieve tighter leakage rates that had previously been achieved with standard packing sets.

It is vital for the end user to understand the leakage class requirements when fugitive emissions are concerned to prevent over or underspecifying the solution. We often see “fugitive emissions” specified without clarification of the requirements. The various requirements from TUV through API and ISO specifications require different testing methodologies and even different testing mediums. This means that the testing standards are not directly comparable to each other. Severn often see the specification of “Low-e” or “Low emission” packing without reference to the specification. In some instances, these packing sets can have allowable leakage of up to 500ppm, many times that of systems tested to the ISO 15848-1 standard and potentially resulting in detrimental reduced on-site performance and / or higher maintenance costs.

Severn understands the ongoing challenges operators face with reducing and eliminating fugitive emissions and have created a technical solution with the design of its Oblique Cone Technology Triple Offset Butterfly Valve.

Severn has focused and will continue to focus its testing efforts on ISO 15848 standards as it is understood that these offer the widest range of qualification options whilst not utilising harmful greenhouse gases that can be emitted using some API methodology. The fact that sealing systems are tested on the valves they are designed for and not a standard test fixture ensures maximum customer confidence in our products performance and reliability.

Severn have focused on passing some of the most stringent testing with class A leakage classes and up to 40,000 operations available for some applications. Ensuring that performance is at the heart of our product range, and you achieve your core remit of safe operations and minimum downtime.

To further the commitment to reducing fugitive emissions and reduce the burden on end users to meet tightening specifications, Severns OCT Triple Offset Butterfly Valve offers the fugitive emissions packing sets as standard fitment on all standard valves in the range. Ensuring that the end user experiences maximum valve performance in all applications.