Respect the valve!

M
r Mardasis professional life has example, Mr Mardasi smiled: No
One of the perks of being an taken him from Iran to the US, problem, lets for instance take any
editor is the chance to travel to then on to Canada and now control system. No matter how far
some far-flung, exotic back in Asia to Malaysia, but a common advanced and sophisticated this system is,
destinations. In my case, the thread throughout his career has always if the final element, the valve, is not
been valves and instrumentation. working, or has been wrongly engineered
plane was heading for
Whether I operated, designed, or (sized /selected) or installed, or has a
Malaysia, with its tempting
engineered them, valves were always an maintenance problem, then the whole
beaches and clear azure impor tant and interesting par t of my system simply will not work or will
waters. In this beautiful, professional life, he immediately function sluggishly.
welcoming country I met with star ted the conversation. My credo
Mr Ezatolah Mardasi who is a was and still is that I if you dont know Experiences from an expert
Principal Engineer at Group about valves, you are neither a proper Although some people criticize me for
Technology Solutions of instrumentation engineer nor a good paying too much attention to valves, I
Petronas, Malaysias national flow control engineer and I am sure think valves are, on the whole, very
that other engineers will agree with important, interesting and worth having a
oil corporation. I spoke to him
me. You can sit behind your computer close look, explained Mr Mardasi. The
about his work within the and work and check the control first thing I learnt about valves is that
instrumentation and control systems from there, but you are not a they are not really alike, same as human
industry and the experiences full-blown engineer without actual valve beings. A valve has to be specifically
he has gathered over the years. and flow control experience. chosen based upon its process
Of course, such a radical statement led application and I think it was not until the
to some discussion during the interview 1980s that engineers started separating
By Christian Borrmann and when asked if he could support this general purpose applications from severe
quite strong point with an actual service use. Not all manufacturers can

2 March 2009 www.valve-world.net

 END-USER INTERVIEW
Valves are mainly we have to face. However, this is a highly
mechanical devices; underrated issue because the system will
you need to use work although not exactly as anticipated.
positioners to be This is where my team and I come in, to
able to receive see why this valve has this stiction and
electronic or digital how to solve it.
signals. Even though Options available can range from
we have highly replacing or repairing the trim or as Mr
developed smart Mardasi prefers - re-engineering the
Mr Ezatolah Mardasi,
Principal Engineer
positioners sitting valve from scratch. Lets face the facts.
Group Technology on top of the When you have a valve working for 10
Solutions at Petronas. valves, they are still years and every year you have to change
remaining the trim, would it then not be better to
mechanical instruments. think twice and perhaps re-engineer the
Mr Mardasi thinks that this false belief is valve? And this is exactly what my team
not only a problem for maintenance and I are doing right now. We look at the
engineers but it starts far earlier already trouble caused by field instruments such
during the engineering phase. The as, valves, transmitters, etc to find out
number of engineers in the engineering why they are not working properly. A
phase who are working with DCS concrete example of this could be when
(Distributed Control System) or PLC high differential pressure causes damage
(Programmable Logic Controller) is rising on a valve due to cavitation and flashing.
but the engineers who literally can do You sometimes cannot just replace the
valves are decreasing very fast.You can valve again and again but perhaps come
see this every where.There are a lot of up with a new design, a completely new
people working with valves, doing really and different valve, different trim, or if
great work, but there are only few necessary even a different manufacturer.
people who really know engineering of Asked why the companies dont do re-
the valves inside out. engineering in the first place, Mr Madrasi
gives a wry smile. Do you have a
Knowledge of valves kitchen? And tell me, if there is something
The knowledge of valves and valve broken, do you go and try to repair it or
technology is a very important thing to if necessary replace it? Or do you think
give you severe service but most can give Mr Mardasi.The team with whom he is about re-engineering this broken item?
general purpose. So, if you separate that working at Petronas has to have this Probably not, and the same is true for
already during the engineering phase you knowledge to do a proper job. Mr every plant. Like what you do in your
can quite early determine which Mardasi: For example, when we try to kitchen, the maintenance engineers try to
manufacturers make and model you go for high performance loops by using a repair or replace before they consider
need for which application. I think we sophisticated control system to identify revisiting engineering.The difficult
were the first to do this in Malaysia and how the loop can perform best, very question is how often you go back to the
the results were pretty good, he proudly often valve stiction is one of the issues root cause of the problem, and think of
added.
The other example Mr Mardasi
mentioned is that sometimes valves are
seen as the most underrated
commodities in instrumentation. Mr
Mardasi: Especially, the new breed of
engineers, the young and upcoming ones,
prefers to click, meaning they prefer the
use of computers more than working on
engineering aspects of field instruments.
They think that valves are not so
important.You can have the best
computerized system in the world to
send out a signal to the final control
element, but if that mechanical device
(valve) does not work, or work sluggishly,
then the whole system does not function.

www.valve-world.net March 2009 3

END-USER INTERVIEW
re-engineering.This is where companies
differ in their policies or strategies. Some About Ezatolah Mardasi
do this in an earlier stage than others. For more than 42 years, Mr Mardasi has been working
The trick is to find the right point in time in the area of Instrument & Control (I&C), where he
to say that re-engineering would be the constantly deals with valves. He started back in 1967,
better solution. working in Irans oil and gas fields in the area of
instrumentation. After a few years, he went to North
The importance of valves America to continue his education at University of
After being in the Instrument & Control Houston, Texas, and graduated in Electrical Engineering,
industry for more than 40 years, Mr with a minor in Process Control in 1977. During his
Mardasi has gained a lot of experiences studies, he was also working for Brown&Roots Inc in
and has seen quite a number of oddities the Houston area, and in March 1978, only four months
throughout the various stages of his after his graduation, he took up the position of Senior I&C Engineer for a
career. He also learnt the importance of Shell polyethylene project in Deer Park, Texas. Later in 1979, he moved to
valves and does not miss any opportunity Massachusetts to pursue his masters degree in Management and
to pass on his expertise. Last time, Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and graduated in October
during one of my site visits, together with 1979. Shortly after, he joined the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and
a group of young engineers, I explained continued his career at the southern Iran oil and gas fields as Senior
to them the importance of valves. I told Instrument Maintenance Engineer. In 1983 he resigned from NIOC, and
them that this little mechanical device is formed his own company with a friend doing construction and
able to pay your living, your house, give commissioning projects. He then sold his shares and migrated to Canada in
you a car, help you have a family but only 1988 and worked for Fluor Daniel for three and a half years on engineering
if you understand and respect it. And design, followed by a one year assignment in Libya for an instrument
then, when we were actually standing in upgrading project. He then worked in Red Deer Alberta for Union Carbide
front of a valve, I said to them, pay and then for Delta Hudson as I&C Lead Engineer before joining OGP
respect and attention, which they jokingly Technical Services Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Petronas, in 1995, and
did. Perhaps that was a bit over the top subsequently joined PetronasGroup Technology Solutions in 2006, as
but I think it served the purpose of never Instrument Principal Engineer.
ever underestimating a valve, no matter
how small or a big it may be.
However, Mr Mardasi is sometimes still
surprised by how little not only oil and
gas companies but also engineers rely on
valves, especially simple, straightforward
types. I remember back in the 1970s,
when I was in my final year in University
of Houston, one of the Known valve
manufacturers came to our campus with
a small size valve, 1-inch or 2-inch, and
said We are flying to the moon and
perhaps soon to other planets but we
still depend on this little device.
And he went on: To be honest, I thought
that back then, the era of pneumatic
valves was over but look where we are
now. We still use pneumatic valves.They
are still present and shining. Some
companies tried electrical actuators but
they never really took off.The reason for
this is pretty simple. When you can use a
simple, cheap and reliable air-operated
valve to control your most important
process facility could be a chemical
plant, a gas plant, a nuclear power plant,
why should you change that, and go for
something which is less reliable and more
maintenance oriented? And I totally agree
with that.

4 March 2009 www.valve-world.net