[mech765]

I worked on a project where we tried to get the packing seal in the stem of a valve to pass a test certifying that it had a low leakage rate (fugitive emissions testing) for natural gas applications.

We used the highest grade seal and followed all design recommendations from the seal manufacturer. Still never passed.

[fuzzfactor]

Leakage like this was never a consideration before the price of oil skyrocketed in the 1970's.

The valves you were working on were designed back then using more advanced technology than ever.

Once the price of oil shot up and stayed, the loss of still-relatively-cheap gas didn't seem so bad after all. They were raking in the bucks on the oil itself like never before.

So will not fix.