Choke Valves

Choke valve is a type of control valves, mostly used in oil and gas production
wells to control the flow of well fluids being produced. Another purpose that
the choke valves serve is to kill the pressure from reservoir and to regulate
the downstream pressure in the flowlines. Choke valves allow fluid flow
through a very small opening, designed to kill the reservoir pressure while
regulating the well production. The reservoir fluids can contain sand particles.
Hence the choke valves are usually designed to handle an erosive service.

Typically oil and gas producing wells have two choke valves in series, one
non-regulating choke valve and one regulating choke valve downstream to
the non-regulating choke valve.

Non-regulating choke valves

Function of the non-regulating choke valve is to act as an on-off valve and kill
the reservoir pressure to a desired operating value in the flowline. The
opening in the choke valve is sized to kill the pressure when valve is fully
open. The non-regulating choke valve is not used for flow regulation and
hence is not sized for controlling the flow. Over the life of an oil production
well, the reservoir pressure drop as fluids are depleted from the reservoirs.
Hence with dropping reservoir pressure, the non-regulating valves may have
to be changed to maintain the same well production levels. Hence over the
life of an oil production well, the non-regulating choke valves can be replaced
with valves having increasingly larger openings for flow.

Regulating choke valves

The regulating choke valve is a flow control valve which is designed to

maintain a steady production level in the flowlines and production header.
Regulating choke valve is an automatic valve and valve opening can be
controlled via electric or pneumatic signal from the control panel to regulate
the flow in downstream flowlines.
Among other applications, choke valves can be used liquid lines operating at
very high pressures.