I sometimes find that the client need "Approved" valve. Although colleague explain that it means approved by BP or Shell, I would like to know more about it. But I cannot get any information from BP or Shell website. Often companies like Shell, BP and Exxon have a list of approved manufactureres. However, the refinery group may approve the a subset of the gate valves; the upstream group may approve a subset of the ball valves and the petrochem group may specify a specialty valve instead of a standard model project. This could all apply to the same corporate line specification - valve list. Each control valve and many of the line class block valves may be selected based upon the service. The companies mentioned may have as many engineers involved in the project representing the various interests as the contractor specifying and buying the valves. A reliability engineer, maintenance and operations may represent the plant while a corporate engineer represents the project. So how is the saleswoman for the valve manufacturing group to cope? Knowledge of the market requirements, as well as free lunch seminars and training could help. Besides the valve details, some of these are industry segment issues, all are people issues. Know the people who are specifying and approving the valves.

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