BOP boasts boltless door

Varco International Inc. has designed the LXT Ram blow out preventer, to improve safety and efficiency of drilling operations. Varco's Shaffer division designed the BOP with Rental & Fishing Tool Inc. and its customers, incorporating features needed to ease operation in tough environments, such as limited substructures and confined cellars. Shaffer will manufacture and sell the BOP, which measures 11-in., and is rated to 5,000 psi. It is the lightest and most compact BOP available in the industry today, Varco said.

The new BOP incorporates Shaffer's new boltless door design. The boltless design speeds routine servicing of the BOP through quick access opening and closing, reducing manpower, improving safety, and avoiding rig downtime. "The boltless door allows for quick access and ram change," John Van Way, president of RFT, said. "It also allows for ram change in minutes instead of hours."

The door has locking pins instead of bolts. Locking pins are not a new concept, but have never been used on a larger, non-traditional shape model. Previous BOP designs have round rams, and the LXT has a square or flat ram cavity. To use locking pins, the Varco engineers had to make a whole new BOP body. Adding to or modifying an existing preventor would not work in this case.

"Varco tends to take the safest route," Van Way said. "For the past 25-30 years they only made a few modifications because they were able to sell the product as the years progressed. But now the industry is demanding more in innovation and more in technology, and of course more efficient tools."

RFT gave Shafer the raw concept idea, and the engineers designed the product, produced it, refined it, and tested it. "We got ideas from years of working out on rigs, maintaining them in our shops, and observing how they perform," Van Way said.