Live gas leak arrested during a demonstration at a gas gathering station

The valve and its duty

The demonstration ran at a central gas gathering station on a working network. The station gathered natural gas and also served an LPG offtake plant. The subject was a 16 inch isolation valve on a live natural gas line.

On arrival, gas was leaking from the greasing point of that valve. A leaking greasing point is a small fitting with a live gas path behind it.

Greasing points are the designed access for lubricant and sealant on many valves. When one leaks, the fitting itself becomes the pressure boundary at risk.

Left alone, a greasing point leak vents gas continuously at the station.

The intervention

Our engineer first cleaned and greased a second 16 inch valve as the planned demonstration. That part showed the routine side of online valve care.

1. He assessed the leaking greasing point with the line still in service.
2. He then fitted a leak lock over the leaking point, working online.
3. The line stayed in service throughout the demonstration and the repair.

A leak lock closes off a leaking fitting without disturbing the valve itself. Work of this kind proceeds only when the fitting condition allows it.

The live leak sealing guide explains when an online arrest is appropriate.

The result

The leak was arrested and the fitting stayed in place on the live line. The client's officer wrote his own account and called the work satisfactory. He then circulated that account of the visit within his own organisation.

A demonstration that solves a live problem carries more weight than any brochure. The station kept producing while the evidence was made in front of the client.

No shutdown was needed at any point in the visit. The client's account, not ours, is the record of what happened.

The same client returned in 2026 to request a budgetary quotation. It also invited us to present on pipeline valve operability.

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