The Oil & Gas Valve industry In Italy: hidden champions of an outperforming cluster

The second edition of the Industrial Valve Summit international exhibition has just taken place as one of the major events in the industrial valve sector on a global scale. The choice of Bergamo as fair venue is not random, due to the concentration within its territory of an industrial district across provincial boundaries that encompasses more than 90% of the national production of valves for the oil & gas industry.

A sector still little known to the public, but that embodies the best of Made in Italy manufacturing: leadership in niche areas, high value-added productions, continuous investments in R&D and a strong export-oriented vocation.

There are about 300 Italian enterprises active in this sector, for a production value equal to 3.5 billion EUR, with linked activities comprising over 11 thousand operators. The Italian leading positioning in this business also stands out at European level where Italy contributes for 31% of total production of industrial valves. Furthermore, Italy is the only top EU producer placed on the podium for each of the main five valves types, from ball valves (one out of two of these devices produced in EU is Made in Italy), to slide, flatter and check valves and globe valves.

Italian companies play a crucial role also in the international valves trade, a 25.5 billion Euro market that since 2007 just shown two year of drops (in 2009 and in 2016) around a steady long-run growth path.  With a 25% market share China is the leading powerhouse in the global Oil & Gas valve industry, however, behind the Asian giant Italy (11,5%) rivals with Germany (11,7%) for the second place of the ranking. Furthermore, in the NAMO markets Italy (22,8% of market share) outperforms China (21,6%).