Valve retrofit or replacement: How a German refinery saved €83,000 on maintenance

The valve is familiar, operators understand its maintenance requirements, and it can usually be installed without significant process changes. However, replacing a problematic valve with an identical design can mean accepting the same maintenance burden, downtime and operating costs for years to come.

A valve retrofit offers a different approach. By reassessing the application and selecting a valve design better suited to operating conditions, plants can reduce maintenance requirements, improve reliability and lower lifecycle costs. At a large refinery in southern Germany, this approach delivered projected maintenance savings of more than €83,000 while significantly reducing the need for routine interventions.

Valve replacement projects are often approached as like-for-like exercises. Yet many operational problems are not caused solely by wear and tear. In some cases, the root cause lies in the original valve design and how well it suits the application.

At the oil refining facility, rising-stem ball valves were performing their intended process function, but maintaining that performance required significant ongoing maintenance. Annual stem-seal replacements, quarterly lubrication programmes and recurring spare-part changes had become part of normal operation.

These maintenance demands were accepted as unavoidable until a review of the application challenged that assumption. By examining the operating requirements, IMI engineers identified an opportunity to achieve the same process performance with a valve design that required substantially less maintenance.

High-cycling services place considerable demands on valves, particularly in refinery, petrochemical and LNG facilities where valves must move frequently to support stable and efficient operation.

For the oil refining facility, the installed valve design relied on numerous moving components and specialised maintenance procedures. Maintenance personnel required dedicated tools for assembly and disassembly, while stores teams had to manage a sizeable inventory of replacement parts.

Although these requirements were typical for the valve type installed, they contributed to higher operating costs, increased maintenance workloads and more complex outage planning.

Rather than replacing the existing valves with identical units, IMI recommended four C-Rex™ double eccentric, segmented ball valves. Our advice was based on a straightforward objective: we aimed to reduce the plant’s maintenance requirements without compromising on its process performance.

Unlike the previous design, the C-Rex™ valve is constructed around just five primary components and eliminates the need for a separate stem assembly. This simplified design helps reduce maintenance demands while continuing to deliver reliable performance in severe-service and high-cycle applications.

For the facility, this meant moving away from quarterly lubrication schedules and annual seal replacement programmes. Instead, the valves could operate with scheduled maintenance every 4 years, supported by external inspections every 2 years. The result was fewer maintenance interventions, reduced downtime and a lower overall maintenance burden for the refinery.

To validate the projected benefits, the facility’s engineering team worked closely with us to replace four competitor rising-stem ball valves during the initial phase of the project.

The installation included:

Using IMI lifecycle cost analysis tools, our team projected maintenance savings, calculated before installation in December 2025, which are currently being validated in service. Our analysis showed that the four replacement valves could deliver maintenance savings of approximately €20,750 per maintenance cycle when compared with the original rising-stem valve design. Across the four-year maintenance interval, total savings are expected to reach approximately €83,000.

Just as importantly, the refinery eliminated many routine maintenance activities that had previously consumed valuable engineering resources and created additional safety and production-loss risks.

For operators reviewing existing valve installations, a retrofit can provide benefits that extend well beyond direct maintenance savings.

Potential advantages include:

In many cases, these improvements can be achieved without major plant modifications, making valve retrofits an attractive option during planned outages.

The IMI C-Rex™ double eccentric segmented ball valve is particularly suited to demanding applications where reliability, availability and maintenance reduction are key operational priorities.

LNG facilities

Refineries

Petrochemical plants

The German refinery project highlights an important lesson for plant operators. Maintenance costs are not always an unavoidable consequence of the process itself. In many cases, they are influenced by the valve design selected for the application.

By reassessing installed equipment and considering modern valve alternatives, operators can often achieve significant improvements in reliability, maintenance efficiency and lifecycle cost performance. For the German refinery operators, the results were compelling enough to support additional C-Rex™ retrofit projects during the refinery's next scheduled outage.

When should a control valve be retrofitted rather than replaced?

A valve retrofit may be worth considering when recurring maintenance issues, frequent repairs or reliability problems stem from the valve design rather than normal wear. Instead of replacing a valve with the same technology, operators can evaluate whether a different valve design would provide the required performance with lower maintenance requirements and improved lifecycle costs.

Can a valve retrofit reduce maintenance costs?

Yes. In many applications, a retrofit can significantly reduce maintenance demands by simplifying valve construction, reducing wear points and extending maintenance intervals. For the German refinery, replacing four rising-stem ball valves with C-Rex™ double eccentric, segmented ball valves is projected to deliver maintenance savings of approximately €83,000 over a four-year maintenance cycle.

What is a double eccentric, segmented ball valve?

A double eccentric, segmented ball valve uses an offset rotational design that reduces contact between the sealing surfaces during operation. This helps minimise wear, reduces operating torque, and improves reliability in demanding services, particularly high-cycle and severe-service applications.

What are the benefits of a valve retrofit?

The benefits can include:

Which industries benefit most from valve retrofits?

Valve retrofits are commonly used in industries where reliability and maintenance costs have a significant impact on operations, including:

Is valve purchase price the best measure of value?

Not always. While purchase price is an important consideration, the true cost of valve ownership often includes maintenance labour, spare parts, downtime, outage planning and production losses. A valve with a higher initial purchase price may deliver a lower total cost of ownership if it significantly reduces maintenance requirements over its operating life.

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