Kimray is adding big valves to lineup
Oklahoma City oilfield valve manufacturer Kimray Inc. is expanding into the pipeline market.
Through a partnership with North Carolinabased Flo-Tite Valves and Controls, Kimray is offering customers a wider range of valve offerings, said Dustin Anderson, Kimray’s vice president of sales and marketing.
“This gives us an opportunity to better serve our customers,” he said. “Our customers often have needs we can’t meet with our current products. To give them a more complete offering is important for us, and it establishes a place for us in the midstream market.”
In the pipeline
Kimray primarily manufactures and sells valves for oil and natural gas wells, which is considered the “upstream” portion of the oil and natural gas business. The company has a few applications in the pipeline and processing sector, which is also known as “midstream,” but those valves generally have been limited to 10 inches. The Flo-Tite partnership will allow the company to offer valves up to 30 inches.
Flo-Tite primarily makes valves for the chemicals industry, although some of its products are used in refineries.
The partnership was formed at a time when pipeline demand is growing throughout the country, said Mark Anderson, Kimray’s product support manager.
“The country in general is building up to being able to export liquefied natural gas,” he said. “A lot of the places that produce large amounts of gas that can be liquefied are far away from the ports, so pipelines are being built to carry that gas from shale production areas down to Houston and Corpus Christi.”
Expanding beyond
The product expansion is part of a broader effort Kimray began shortly before the 2014 commodity price collapse that threw the industry into the deepest downturn in a generation.
“Our goal is to expand beyond upstream applications,” Dustin Anderson said. “The upstream arena is very volatile depending on what the price does. Life cycles are shorter in upstream.
“When we get into midstream, we’ll have longerterm projects and bigger projects that typically are not impacted as rapidly as the upstream market.”
By partnering with an existing manufacturer with an existing valve, Kimray can quickly move the new valves to its customers, David Anderson said.
The Flo-Tite valves initially will be assembled at Flo-Tite’s office in North Carolina. If demand grows as the companies expect, however, some assembly will move to Kimray’s Oklahoma City offices.
“We’re transforming a warehouse into a new facility that will help us build packages and put together different components,” Mark Anderson said.