With the continuous innovation of
valves used for natural gas pipelines, while traditional pipeline valves continue to play their roles, many valves with new structures and new functions are gradually applied to natural gas pipelines. In the future development of pipeline valves, the pipeline ball valve will continue to be the main force of the pipeline valve with its own advantages. The plug valve will be used as a supplementary cut off valve in the natural gas pipeline and station control system, which is a kind of dedicated valve meeting the special requirements for natural gas pipelines. Slab valves will be mainly used in pipelines transporting crude oil and refined oil and natural gas pipelines with pressures over CL900 to CL2500. Forced sealing valves will be increasingly used as special valves for metering systems, metering calibration systems, multi-branch mixed transportation systems, and frequent operation systems.
In recent years, with the development of new functional materials and the continuous improvement of high-end machining and manufacturing technology, natural gas pipeline valves have developed rapidly. Throughout the world-wide valve's design technology, it mainly has the following characteristics:
- Specific application solutions are more focused on the valve design.
- More computer simulation and simulation technologies are introduced into the valve design.
- The valve's design standards are becoming stricter and more specific.
- Various standards that adapt to safety and environmental protection are widely accepted by mainstream users and gradually become a trend.
- The application of new materials is becoming more and more extensive.
- The design standards are developing in the direction of rapid update and continuous detailing.
- Various new verification technologies are becoming new methods for valve design.
- The integration of multidisciplinary is the mainstream direction of the future development of valve design.
Worldwide valve manufacturing mainly has the following characteristics:
- The global valve industry chain pattern has been formed. China has become an indispensable member of the global valve manufacturing field, and affects the entire world's valve market.
- A lot of modern equipment is applied, and the level of valve manufacturing technology has been improved.
- The surface treatment technology of materials has been widely used.
- Various welding technologies are playing an increasingly important role in the manufacture of valves.
- A market for individualized special needs is gradually taking shape, and agile production and valve manufacturing for special application conditions will become a development direction in the future.
Market prospects of valves used for natural gas pipelines
In the 21st century, with the continuous development of natural gas resources, people's utilization of natural gas will reach a new height, and there will be a boom in the development of natural gas in the world. International natural gas experts predicted that by 2030, the supply of natural gas would increase by 1.6 trillion cubic meters, and the investment in the upstream, midstream, and downstream value chain systems of natural gas would reach US$10 trillion. Marked by the completion of the West-East Gas Pipeline Project, Chin's natural gas industry has also entered a period of rapid development, and has made great achievements in exploration, development, pipeline construction, and market development. Since 2000, more than 400 billion cubic meters of proven natural gas reserves have been added each year, and a batch of large gas fields with 100 billion cubic meters have been proven in Sulige, Dina, Puguang, Xujiahe, Sebei, and Xushen. The natural gas production has increased from 20 billion cubic meters to nearly 80 billion cubic meters, and China has successfully invested in the development of complex large deep gas fields with abnormally high pressure, large areas of low permeability and low abundance gas fields. China has successively built the first and second lines of the West-East Gas Pipeline, Shan-Jing Second Line, Se Ning Lan, Zhong-Wu Line and other large-scale gas pipelines. The technology of large-scale pipelines reached the international advanced level. The natural gas market is expanding rapidly, and the scope of gas supply covers the whole country except for the individual provinces and autonomous regions, improving the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.
The rapid development of the natural gas industry and the construction of natural gas pipelines will directly promote the development of valves used for natural gas pipelines. The overall length is 4,200 kilometers The West-East Gas Pipeline Project with an overall length of 4,200 kilometers from Lunnan, Xinjiang to Shanghai was successfully constructed. For the valves in the stations and branch pipelines, more than 5,000 pipeline ball valves are needed, which has greatly promoted the development of pipeline valves in China.
Currently, the West-East Gas Pipeline the second line with 4,000 kilometers will be built, and there are also five proposed international pipelines with a total length of more than 10,000 kilometers. It can be seen that the development of the natural gas industry in the 21st century will enable pipeline valves to advance in technology and have unlimited commercial opportunities.