James Walker - Global Sealing Services for the Oil and Gas Sector

James Walker knows that its high performance fluid sealing specialist products and services must be supplied on a regional basis to satisfy global operators in the oil and gas industry.

The reason is that engineers using its seals on North Sea projects expect the same technical support and service whether they are in the Timor Sea Gulf or Mexico. Also, equipment manufacturers in Asia need the same approved seals for valves and pumps as those in the USA and Europe when supplying multinational operators.

James Walker's oil and gas sector operation now holds local stocks for the major oilfield supply bases of Aberdeen, Stavanger, Houston and Singapore. Backed by oilfield support in France, Italy, Germany, Australia and South Africa, it efficiently serves the worldwide exploration, production and refinery markets.

Its global pricing structure also proves important, as purchasing officers appreciate cost stability as much as product quality, sealing reliability and surety of supply.

NORSOK QUALIFICATION FOR ED-RESISTANT MATERIALS

Explosive Decompression (ED) problems in North Sea fields got James Walker deeply involved in the trouble-shooting aspects of the oil and gas sector. Today, it leads the world with high performance ED-resistant elastomers and seals for downhole, wellhead and upstream duties.

James Walker's five main grades of ED-resistant elastomer have been validated in-house using high-pressure methane / CO2 mixtures at elevated temperatures in its own ED test house - a facility few other companies possess. Shell, Total and many OEMs have approved these materials.

Two ED-resistant grades are qualified to Norsok M-710 requirements, with FR58/90 having a sour gas rating of 817 years and Elast-O-Lion® 101 rated at 36.7 years. Both have high integrity fluid sealing capabilities. In addition, FR58/90 displays excellent chemical and thermal properties, with Elast-O-Lion 101 also having exceptional mechanical strength and wear resistance.

"Norsok M-710 has one of the toughest ED testing regimes", said Trevor Clarke, James Walker's global business manager for oil and gas sector operations. "It combines rapid gas decompression tests for ED-resistance with the evaluation of sour gas (H2S) aging, enabling life predictions to be made for application conditions. This is invaluable to operators in the North Sea, Caspian Sea, Middle East, and many sour fields across the world."

With ED-resistant materials under constant development, the company regularly introduces new high-performance seals to take advantage of material advances. It tailors materials and seal designs for optimum performance, then precision-moulds items, from small 'O' rings up to 2.2m (87in) diameter seals, in a single operation.

SEALING PRODUCTS FOR OIL AND GAS APPLICATIONS

'O' rings are moulded in 100+ grades of high performance and general elastomers to international standards or custom specifications. Seven million are stocked, many in ED-resistant materials.

Springsele® and Teesele® double-acting seals are used downhole, on wellhead and surface equipment, valves, high-pressure pipelines and riser systems. They handle arduous mechanical conditions with anti-extrusion elements that enable them to seal large clearances.

P-Seal is for rough casing and production tubing. It has a profiled element of elastomer or elastomer-proofed fabric, plus anti-extrusion elements of compressed stainless steel mesh. It is energised by injected plastic packing.

FS Casing and Tubing Seal combine the benefits of Springsele® and P-Seal. This wellhead seal is validated on rough casings to API 6A Appendix F, PR2.

Custom-seals are developed by James Walker's Materials Technology Centre, where materials application and field engineering teams study clients' fluid sealing problems and create the best value working solutions.

Other products include tie-down and lock-down screw packings, mud pump packings, metal ring joints made in the UK by API-licensee James Walker Moorflex, Metaflex® spiral wound gaskets, Comflex® expansion joints and flexible bellows, RotaBolt® tension control fasteners and Tico® pipe supports.