Valves may be a small equipment in energy projects, but they are critical, high-value, and highly specification-driven.
In this post, we use the example of Valves to present the capacity from our service Project Smart Explorer to evaluate the valve market across energy projects, breaking down demand by project type, region, and application.
Our objective is simple: help manufacturers understand where the next opportunities are and how market dynamics are shifting as energy projects evolve.
Market Drivers for valves
Valves are present in every type of energy projects, from Oil & Gas, to Petrochem, or Decarbonation and Recycling. Valves business opportunities depend on project trends as they are often one of the last package of equipment acquired by procurement team.
Currently the market is globally going up, pursuing the growth started since covid.
One of the main driver being the increasing demand of energy. As the world population is developping, the overall consumption of energy is growing, so are energy projects. The demographic driver for growth of energy is pretty stable and offer good future prospect for the market of valves, beyond 2050.
The second driver of the valve market today is the push for LNG projects. At the example of USA under Trump administration, or Mozambique giant projects executed by TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil, and Qatar NFE; LNG projects are booming, with each time Capex in dozen of billions. The direct execution of those projects have and will skyrocket the demand for valves in the coming years.
The third positive driver of the market for valve is the growth of energy transition projects. While solar and wind projects do not require a lot of valves to operate at the exception of cooling systems; the rest of the energy transition is highly depending on valves. At the example of bio or e-fuels, as well as hydrogen of carbon capture, those type of projects appetite for valves is growing every year.
The last driver for valves is coming from projects done for security reasons. Following years of chaotic events for the sovereignity of energy, many countries have been investing in their energy system especially terminals, pipelines, storage units. All the Midstream projects are huge users of valves equipment to regulate the flow of energy.
Regional Outlook for Valves
Below is the Business Opportunities for Ball Valves per continent for projects to be awarded from 2026 to 2029. Those figures has been extracted from Project Smart Explorer:
- North America : $1.3 billion USD with 38% market share
- Asia Pacific : $590 million USD with 16% market share
- Africa : $665 million USD with 18% market share
- Europe : $291 millions USD with 8%
- Middle East : $384 millions USD with 11%
- South America : $315 million USD with 9%
For the coming few years, USA dominates the market for valves. The strong pipeline of LNG trains projects following the new administration is of course fueling the demand for valves.
Behind, Africa is second for the valve market also fueld by giant LNG projects offshore and onshore. Mozambique is of course to look at but other hubs like Angola and Egypt are proposing many project opportunities.
Asia-pacific is still weighting a lot on the valves market with the largest concentration of Petrochemical projects. In that case, the demographic factor is playing a double role as Asian population is the largest and the standard of living is growing here the most rapidly, calling for more energy and petrochem. Both applications depending heavily on valves.
Middle-East will be focusing on absorbing the backlog of all the project which have been awarded the last 2 years, and will thus weigh less on the period 2026-2029.
Europe with a specialization on Energy Transition projects is reclaiming market share year to year and is becoming less marginal. South America has the specificty to be focusing on Oil & Gas projects with most of opportunities being FPSO projects in Brazil, Surinam and Guyana.
Valve Business Pipeline
Our service Project Smart Explorer uses Ball Valve business opportunities in all the energy projects around the planet to build up a macro vision of the market for valves per year.
The business pipeline is available below :
At first glance, you may want to see the market for Ball valves is going to double in 2026 and 2027 compared to previous years. The reality is a bit more complex.
While the appetite for Valves is growing and the drivers we presented are calling for more valves, the reality of the market is that many of the energy projects planned for 2026 and 2027 won’t be able to be executed on time.
Engineering companies are currently gutted with projects and massive backlogs, making the virtual forecast of projects impossible to execute in only 2 years. Due to this bottle neck, many projects will need to be postponed to the following years for execution. Postponing the business opportunities of valves to the same extend.
The conclusion is the market for Valves is solid and growing, with possibilities beyond doable. From projects we already know as of today, there is enough business opportunities to full the manufacturers till late 2030.
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