Valve manufacturers should emulate major league baseball
Valve market research is used typically as an outside opinion . By contrast , the financial statement is integral to business strategy .
This statement gives the cost and revenue details . If it is a major league baseball team , the details include the cost of cutting the outfield grass and the price of the beer .
By Bob McIlvaine , the McIlvaine Company
In the last two decades , major league baseball has incorporated the same level of detail into the performance of the players , the competition and any fact or factor which can influence success . The third base coach no longer just relies on his experience to signal a steal , but on mountains of facts and factors relative to the success potential . Facts involving the pitcher , catcher , and runner are tabulated and factors are created to guide the best decision . The number of baseball club performance facts and factors can equal those in the financial statements . Valve manufactures can obtain similar benefits from comprehensive use of facts and factors . Here is an example : A large valve company contracted for an analysis of pipeline valves . The scope included
• 80 countries and sub regions
• Ball valves only
• Trunnion and floating segmented
• 10 different sizes through 36 ” segmented
• Gas and oil pipelines segmented This could be done cost-effectively because of the repository of valve facts and factors which have been organized and updated over the years . In 2021 , ball valve revenues in oil and gas were over 30 % of the total .
Oil and gas are further split between upstream and mid-stream , which includes the pipelines . The segmentation of the world market into 80 countries and sub regions is generally sufficient to single out any geographical entity with more than 0.5 % of the valve market . However , when it comes to oil and gas pipelines , there are small countries with more than 1 % of the pipeline market . The analysis of the before must include 5 additional countries . Ball valves are used for both control and isolation , further expanding the number of unique niches . There are performance advantages to trunnion supported balls making separate forecasts of this design useful .
Hurdles when forecasting
The investment in valves is a function of the flow volume and distance . So , the better the oil and gas flow forecast the better the valve forecast . The price of oil caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine is changing all the forecasts . Certain technologies which have not been pursued , such as modular LNG plants taking advantage of gas presently flared , now have to be reevaluated . The Sinopec project to gasify coal in Northern China and pipe gas all over China also is under review .
56 Valve World February 2023 www . valve-world . net