Adding to the severity, the new well completion methods are utilising longer laterals and require much larger volumes of sand, which is causing conventional choke valve designs to fail even faster.
The key to increasing the service life of production equipment is to reduce the velocity of the fluid and solid particles that create erosion. IMI CCI has developed a new DRAG® choke valve designed specifically for severe shale gas applications, the 100DAC.
The 100DAC provides solid tungsten carbide valve trim and features multiple sixteen stage DRAG® flow paths arranged in a compact axial configuration.
The tungsten carbide outlet liner is a proven approach to protecting the valve body, and the standard wing nut bonnet design is focused on making valve service fast and easy.