Velocious take delivery of Buckle Initator Cylinders
Velocious, an emerging player in the Offshore industry specialising in solution based engineering, recently took delivery of a pair of Super Duplex stainless steel cylinders that use seawater as a hydraulic medium.
Velocious of Belmont WA, winner of the 2011 WA Business News Rising Star Award, has been awarded a contract for specialist pipeline buckle initiation equipment for the Chevron-operated Gorgon Project. Ezy-Fit Marine was subcontracted to manufacture the Pipeline Buckle Initiator Hydraulic Cylinders for Velocious and a pair of these were successfully tested and delivered in October and November 2011.
The application and environmental conditions associated with the project necessitated large bore and long stroke cylinders manufactured entirely from Duplex and Super Duplex stainless steel which operate in the ocean depths. Instead of using hydraulic oil as a pressure medium, the cylinders were designed to operate using pressurised filtered seawater as the operating fluid. The use of seawater to operate hydraulic cylinders is extremely rare with very few successful precedents in existence. As it is corrosive, has no lubricity, and its molecular diameter is so small in comparison to oil (only around 1/350th of the diameter), the materials, seals and tolerances were carefully selected to optimise the smooth operation and longevity of the cylinders.
Ezy-Fit Marine is looking forward to the completion of the Gorgon pipeline installation project, and look forward to supplying similar cylinder solutions to Velocious in the future.
The Gorgon Project is operated by an Australian subsidiary of Chevron and is a joint venture of the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron (approximately 47 percent), ExxonMobil (25 percent), Shell (25 percent), Osaka Gas (1.25 percent), Tokyo Gas (one percent) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417 percent).
