INDUSTRY CAPSULES
VMA NEWS
Bill Sandler Delivers Keynote Address at Aramco Technical Exchange
VMA President Bill Sandler spoke
before an audience of 120 end users
and valve manufacturers at the
Aramco Technical Exchange on
“Advances in Valve Technology and
Applications,” held May 6 at the
headquarters of Aramco Services
Company in Houston, TX.
Sandler delivered the keynote
address in which he informed atten-
dees about the Valve Manufacturers
Association and its various programs
and activities, including the association’s new Education &
Training initiative, as well as providing VMA’s outlook for
valve shipments and orders in 2010.
“None of our member companies sees 2010 shipments
being below 2009,” he said. “About 35% of VMA members
expect shipments to stay the same as in 2009; 50% say
growth will be less than 10%; 15% believe shipments will be
up more than 10%,” Sandler noted.
The one-day event was organized around four tracks:
low-temperature/cryogenic valves; severe service applications; fugitive emissions; and valve type testing.
The topic of fugitive emissions was clearly on everyone’s
mind as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
seeks “guarantees” to assure emissions stay below a certain
level. While valve makers have made huge strides in reducing
fugitive emissions, the industry is becoming increasingly con-
cerned about EPA’s new—and confusing—mandates. Accord-
ing to Brian Hood of Flowserve, who addressed the topic from
a manufacturer’s perspective, “a performance guarantee is
difficult to define… it doesn’t make sense to do a 5-year guar-
antee” as size, applications and processes—all of which affect
performance—vary widely. Instead, he advocated “an inter-
national standard to enable classification of performance of
industrial valves to reduce fugitive emissions.”
A number of sessions focused on RFID tagging and capa-
VMA President Bill
Sandler speaks at the
Aramco Technical
Exchange.
Presenters at the Aramco Technical Exchange in front of the
company’s offices.
bilities. David Carta of Telareris discussed the limitations of
barcodes and printed serial numbers and how RFID solves
these problems. But the technology is not perfect, and it is
expensive, said Carta; still, RFID tagging has been proven to
increase operational efficiency.
Other presentations addressed cryogenic performance,
selection and testing; material and process benchmarking;
combating counterfeiting; seat pressure testing leakage
acceptance criteria; and valve metadata standards.
Following the day-long gathering, organizer Rajan
Hingoraney, valve specialist at Aramco Services, said that
the response was very enthusiastic with participants rating
the event “excellent” in a post-meeting survey. Plans are
already underway for next year’s conference.
An advisory committee helped plan and moderate the
event, and was composed of representatives from Aramco
Services, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Fluor, Conoco-Phillips, Cameron, Velan, PBV, Dow and United Valve.
MEMBERS RESPOND
TO CALL FOR DONATIONS
VMA members continue to answer the call for contributions to the Friends of the Crawford Library (FOCL),
VMA’s educational foundation. The FOCL fund is used
to help further develop and support valve industry education programs. Following is a list of member companies who have contributed to the program in 2010:
PLATINUM LEVEL
Emerson Process Management
GOLD LEVEL
CRANE Flow Solutions
SILVER LEVEL
DFT Inc.
BRONZE LEVEL
AUMA Actuators, Inc.
Conval, Inc.
Richards Industries
United Valve
For a complete list of corporate donors from 2009 to
2010, go to VMA.org > Valve Education > About
Valve Ed. To make a donation to the FOCL, go to
VMA.org > Valve Education > Donations.
