Eaton Expands Synflex® Subsea Hose Offering
To Meet Deepwater Exploration, Production Challenges

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. … Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation announced today that it has added a new Extended Life Blow Out Prevention (BOP) Pod Hose Pilot Line to its Synflex® family of advanced hoses for offshore oil exploration and production operations.

“The 39LV-03 pilot line provides a solution to a critical need in the offshore oil industry,” said Senior Product Manager Michael Rauh. “As exploration and production move into deeper water, the environment in which these hoses operate becomes more and more challenging, but the industry’s requirements for reliable, controllable hydraulic power and control solutions remain unchanged.

“Our new 39LV-03 Extended Life BOP Pilot Line, rated at 3,000 psi, is an excellent example,” Rauh said. “It utilizes a unique reinforcing process and advanced yarn management design using Dupont Kevlar ® brand fiber to achieve a 10-time increase in operating life compared to the widely-used 37LV-03 hose, which is popular in the industry today.”

BOP Hoses have a central hose or “power-line” surrounded by a bundle of smaller hoses, all inside a tough jacket. In a typical BOP system the central tube supplies the high-pressure hydraulic fluid needed to operate the BOP Stack on the seafloor. The BOP Stack is equipped with hydraulically-powered rams that prevent the escape of high-pressure gas if a gas pocket is encountered while drilling. The smaller hoses in the bundle are used to transmit hydraulic control signals to and from the drilling platform and BOP Stack.

“Blow-out prevention is a major safety and environmental issue,” Rauh said. “That’s why the American Petroleum Institute has developed extremely stringent requirements for BOP systems, and why our BOP bundles are engineered to meet and exceed those requirements.”

Pilot lines are used to supply hydraulic signals to seafloor-mounted drilling equipment. Among the properties required are high abrasion resistance and low expansion under pressure. The latter is important because a pilot line may be thousands of feet long in order to reach the ocean floor. Any expansion of the hose increases the amount of time it takes for a signal to reach the BOP stack. This becomes increasingly important as the length of the hose increases.

“With the exploration frontier being expanded well beyond 10,000 feet,” Rauh said, “the need for an ultra low volumetric expansion hose is becoming more and more critical.

“Today,” he noted, “rigs working at 10,000 feet are largely limited to the use of electrical and optic controlled seafloor equipment because of the volumetric expansion issue in very long hydraulic hoses. That is an opportunity for us at Eaton to bring reliable and cost effective hydraulic solutions to the industry.”

Eaton’s Synflex hose offers a full range of solutions for offshore oil exploration and production applications. Synflex BOP Pod hose bundles are typically ordered in 3,000 psi and 5,000 psi ratings, and other control bundles are available for operating pressures up to 15,000 psi. Most of the hoses produced by Eaton for subsea production applications are fully API 17E tested.

Eaton’s Hydraulics Operation is a business segment of the Eaton Fluid Power Group. The business is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of a comprehensive line of reliable, high-efficiency hydraulic systems and components for use in mobile and industrial applications. Mobile and industrial markets include agriculture, construction, mining,

forestry, utility, material handling, earthmoving, truck and bus, machine tools, molding, primary metals, automotive, power generation, port machinery and entertainment. Eaton’s Hydraulics Operation provides customer-driven solutions under brand names such as Aeroquip^®, Boston^®, Char-Lynn^®, Eaton^®, Hydro-Line^®, Synflex^®, Vickers^®, Walterscheid™, and Weatherhead^®. For more information, visit www.eaton.com/hydraulics.

Eaton Corporation is a diversified industrial manufacturer with 2007 sales of $13.0 billion. Eaton is a global leader in electrical systems and components for power quality, distribution and control; hydraulics components, systems and services for industrial and mobile equipment; hydraulics, fuel and pneumatic systems for commercial and military aircraft; intelligent truck drivetrain systems for safety and fuel economy; and automotive engine air management systems, powertrain solutions and specialty controls for performance, fuel economy and safety. Eaton has 79,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit www.eaton.com.

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