What is an API600 valve?

API 600 Standard Overview

API 600 (“Bolted bonnet steel gate valves for the oil and gas industry”) is an international authoritative standard developed by the American Petroleum Institute (API), designed for high temperature, high pressure, corrosive media and other extreme working conditions, widely used in oil, gas, refining and chemical industry. Its core objective is to ensure the safety, durability and zero-leakage performance of the valve throughout its life cycle.

Core Scope of Application

Industry: oil and gas extraction, refineries, chemical plants, power plants

Media: crude oil, natural gas, steam, sulfur-containing oil and gas, corrosive chemicals

Operating conditions: Temperature range -29℃ to 593℃, pressure class Class 150 to Class 2500

Adaptation to special working conditions:

Sulfur-containing environment: comply with NACE MR0175 standard, valve body material hardness ≤ 22 HRC, to prevent hydrogen sulfide stress corrosion.

Low temperature conditions: deep cold treatment (-196 ℃ impact test), material A352 LCB / LCC.

Structural design features

Bolted Bonnet: Easy to disassemble and maintain, sealing with spiral wound gasket (SWG) or metal ring gasket.

Open stem bracket design (OS&Y): exposed stem for visual indication of valve opening, suitable for gearbox or electric actuator.

Dual seal construction:Rigid gate: suitable for clean media, sealing surface precision grinding .

Elastic gate: automatically compensate for temperature/pressure fluctuation deformation, prevent thermal expansion and contraction leakage.

Full diameter flow path: consistent with the inner diameter of the pipeline, reducing pressure loss and extending valve life.

API 600 valves typical application scenarios

1.High temperature and high pressure system

Hydrogenation reactor of oil refinery: resistant to 425℃, 20MPa high pressure hydrogen, material WC9+Stellite overlay welding.

Power plant main steam pipeline: Class 600 valves, valve body WCB + graphite seal, resistance to thermal fatigue cycle more than 100,000 times.  

2.Corrosive media environment

Offshore platform sulfur-containing oil and gas: NACE MR0175 certified duplex steel valves, design life of 30 years.

Chemical plant acid and alkali pipeline: Hastelloy C276 valve internals, resistant to 98% concentrated sulfuric acid corrosion.

3.Long cycle continuous operation

Strategic Crude Oil Reserve: API 600 gate valves are maintained every 5 years, with a failure rate of <0.5%.

LNG receiving station: deep-cooled valves pass -196℃ test, supporting uninterrupted operation for 10 years.