For those of you who don’t know, a valve is a device that regulates, directs or controls the flow of fluid by opening, closing or partially obstructing various passageways.
And these valves are extremely important and expensive when it comes to the construction of an oil refinery. In fact, valves make up about 25 percent of the total cost of constructing an oil refinery, which can cost billions of dollars.
Now, a small Rhode Island company has designed a new, more compact control valve that costs between half and 80 percent less than traditional valves, and is just as, if not more, efficient than other standard valves on the market.
In a short amount of time, the company Clarke Valve has become an established player in the industry, forging strategic partnerships with 13 of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, including Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Shell, Exxon and BP.
These companies are also shareholders in the company, cementing their belief that the Shutter Valve from Clarke Valve is the future of control valves in the industry.
"We are a small company in Rhode Island competing with much larger companies that have enormous financial resources and thousands of employees."
“As I observed more and more valve problems throughout my engineering career, I decided I was very passionate about solving these issues and bringing them to the forefront,” Kyle Daniels, founder and CEO of Clarke Valve, told Rhode Island Inno. “There has been no innovation in valve technology in the last 50 years, which is part of an overall significant drought in mechanical improvements to ancillary support devices.”
Daniels designed his first new valve and had it patented while studying at Ohio State University. He first started noticing valve issues while working in the aerospace industry for companies like GE and Pratt & Whitney, where he managed a fleet of executive jets.
From there, he began to design more prototypes and became more convinced that he could make valves not only more affordable, but also more technically sound. Eventually, Daniels would go on to design a number of different models and secure patents for his designs in the U.S., Europe, China and Japan.
Daniels came up with his designs by applying aerospace design and manufacturing techniques to the valve. The geometry behind the Clarke Valve design creates a very efficient flow path, which allows end users to reduce the overall size and footprint of the valve.
Because the valve is typically made from stainless steel, the more you cut down the size and weight, the more you can reduce the cost and pass the savings on to the customer.
Clarke Valve first entered the market in 2014 after raising a $1 million funding round from New World Angels. At this time, Daniels also moved the company to Rhode Island, because he completed his masters degree at Brown University, and knew he would be able to find engineering talent from Brown and other nearby colleges and universities.
The Ocean State also gave Clarke Valve access to some smaller customers as well. The company licenses its technology to Curtiss-Wright, which supplies Clarke Valves to the U.S. Navy and nuclear power plants.
In just over four years, the company has grown from two to 18 employees and raised more than $23 million in venture funding to date.
Most recently, in September of 2018, Clarke Valve completed a $5.5 million venture funding round, led by OGCI Climate Investments, a $1.3 billion fund led by the CEOs of the 13 global oil and gas companies that are also shareholders in Clark Valve.
OGCI’s goal is to find and develop technology that will make a significant impact in reducing the emissions footprint of the oil and gas industry. Daniels said the new venture round will be used to continue Clarke Valve’s development of one of its valves that prevents emissions from escaping the valve into the atmosphere.
The valve is already on the market, and has a certification from the American Petroleum Institute for being the lowest emission control valve among its peers. But Daniels said Clarke Valve is continuing to validate and enhance this design to gain widespread use.
Once the valve is fully validated, the oil and gas companies will be able to buy them from Clarke Valve in large volumes.
“We are a small company in Rhode Island competing with much larger companies that have enormous financial resources and thousands of employees,” said Daniels. “We are very excited to bring good manufacturing and engineering jobs to Rhode Island, and to help bring global attention and investment to the state because the world’s largest companies have now gained visibility of this location.”
