Shipham Valves
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Product: RETS refuelling valve
Customer: MOD
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The MOD approached Shipham and several other valve businesses and asked
them to develop a rugged 6” bore refuelling valve for use in the battlefield with layflat hosing.
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This was a competitive tender, with the essential elements of the specification being as follows;
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• To have thermal bypass valve
• Be capable of being operated by personnel wearing NBC suits
• Be inherently stable for operation on slopes
• Be light and easily handled
• Survive extreme dry and severe cold (freezing tests were carried out)
• Survive a 6 foot drop onto hard packed earth
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The Shipham design won the tender through offering the best technical and commercial solution. The design incorporated an additional port in the ball to allow for freezing without causing damage, ratchet operation for ease of use and carrying handles that act as a crash replaceable protection frame.
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Then during the 2003 Iraq War, the MOD needed additional valves quickly and we were requested to deliver 114 units on a short leadtime – deliveries started 6 weeks from the order date and were completed in 11 weeks.

Bestobell Valves
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Product: ASPRO
Customer: British Compressed Gas Association members
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Following several incidences of contamination of CO2 being used in soft drinks manufacture due to backflow from customers’ systems into suppliers’ delivery trailers, the European industrial gas industry decided to develop a set of standards to reduce the risk of this recurring.
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In the UK the BCGA issued a requirement to the suppliers to the industry and Bestobell responded by working with the relevant BCGA technical committee to understand the application requirement. As a result, the ASPRO, a Bestobell-patented product, was developed. Fitting the ASPRO prevents back contamination of the storage vessel and consequently prevents contamination of the delivery trailer.
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The new standard was adopted in 2003 and ASPRO’s are now fitted on multi-drop CO2 delivery trailers and CO2 bottle filling stations across the UK.

Conflow
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Product: Manifolds for hydraulic control valves
Customer: Offshore oil and gas industry
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Suppliers of remote control valve actuators are continually looking for ways of simplifying their automatic systems. Historically, control boxes had been a maze of pipework, valves and filter units.
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Through working with Conflow, actuator and valve OEM’s have been able to rationalise these systems into a single manifold which, with clever use of cartridges and valve inserts, has drastically reduced the size of the control box.
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In addition the advantages to the OEM’s are a significant reduction in their buildtime and the ability to source the complete manifold from a single supplier.
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By using a modular design approach, Conflow can offer a customised design for most eventualities.

Bestobell LNG
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Product: Miniature needle globe valve (MNGV)
Customer: BP Shipping
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BP approached Bestobell following safety and leakage problems experienced by BP with the ball valves in the sampling and purging lines on their existing fleet of LNG cargo carriers.
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Through a BP naval architect working closely with the Bestobell Technical Director, the design of Bestobell’s proven cryogenic globe valve was adapted to make it suitable for LNG applications by changing the materials of manufacture and the detailed design to make it fire safe.
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All BP LNG cargo carriers built since then have been fitted with these valves, and several other LNG cargo carrier owners also now specify the Bestobell MNGV since long product life and safety are so critical in this industry.