NEWS RELEASE                                                                                        JANUARY 2013

$69 Billion Market for Industrial Process Automation and Control in 2013

This year industrial enterprises around the world will invest $69 billion for process automation and control. This is the latest finding in Air/Gas/Water/Fluid Treatment and Control: World Markets published by the McIlvaine Company.

A number of companies participate in the industrial process automation and control market. Some of the companies have extensive lines of instrumentation and control valves which are included in their automation packages. Others have little instrumentation or valves but buy these from others. Many of the companies purchase some of the components and act as integrators.

Industrial process automation is distinct from building, transportation or other automation segments. The major purchasers include the power, refining and oil and gas industries. World revenues in 2013 are projected at $69 billion.

 

Instrumentation is the largest segment and is analyzed in detail in a separate McIlvaine publication Air and Water Monitoring (including liquids and gases). Control valves is another substantial segment. It is analyzed in Industrial Valves: World Markets.

The integration of systems along with software to change operations is the biggest growth area. It is presently a $9 billion market, but has potential to be much larger.

In 2013 the power industry will be the biggest purchaser of automation systems.

Coal-fired power plants will buy more automation systems than the other generator types (nuclear, gas, biomass, wind and solar) combined. This is due to the huge construction activities in Asia and the attractive economics of increasing energy efficiency at older power plants.

Oil and gas will be the second largest industry segment. The Middle East will generate the most revenue in this segment, but NAFTA is closing the gap. A large investment in automation is   required in hydraulic fracturing. In the U.S., there is a very large investment in extraction of liquids from the so-called wet shale in the west and gas from dry shale areas in Texas and Pennsylvania.

The market is also expanding due to the expenditures to liquefy natural gas. In the U.S., terminals which were built to import and gasify LNG are now being converted over to liquefy the U.S. shale gas and export it.

New regulations on fugitive emissions make the automation package more complex. Systems to capture gas now released during well completion incorporate a number of valves and other products which must be automated. The reclamation and reuse of wastewater is also an expanding application for automation systems.

Sub-sea applications challenge suppliers with requirements for high pressure and performance. Because of the lack of human access, the automation system has a very high reliability requirement.

The transport of gas liquids, which are a by-product of the shale gas extraction, provide still another application. There are also plans to invest more than $20 billion in gas-to-liquid plants. These plants will take advantage of the disparity between natural gas and oil prices. These plants will each require automation and control of thousands of valves, along with separators, compressors, pumps and other products.

McIlvaine has created a ranking which is based on different criteria than most. It includes revenues just for industrial process automation after deduction of control valves. Siemens is the largest supplier followed by ABB and Emerson.

Yokogawa shows up higher on this list than one with general automation rankings for two reasons. The company does not make control valves and its primary focus is on the industrial sector.

The big long-range potential is to fully integrate advanced process automation with enterprise management. One of the stumbling blocks has been a way to quantify social and economic alternatives. Various sustainability models are complex and not uniformly applicable. McIlvaine has created a common metric to measure all harm and good. It has also developed a database of important event odds, tribal factor impacts and the adjustment of future values to the present.

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