VALVE MAGAZINE Fall 2025

MARKET OUTLOOK

constraints and large tracts of land needed are just a few of the obstacles that the industry is challenged with today. However, public support and the global continued push and pressure to decarbonize will likely mean that some of these projects don’t go away for good. There are still battery energy storage projects worth over billion globally in the works, with nearly half of these planned for the U.S. and Canada. Solar leads renewable projects, surpassing all others, but tax credits being altered many result in a change of plans. Curtailed approvals for o shore wind and renewables on federal lands have also caused the cancellation of several proposed projects. In more traditional power markets such as fossil fuel- red plants, the biggest share of spend is going toward plant capital expenditures (Capex) and maintenance. There is a booming demand for energy, driven largely by the new construction of over , data center projects planned just in the U.S. With an aging grid that is already somewhat unreliable, getting a stable baseload for all corners of the country continues to be a challenge. Grid congestion is another issue as new plants and capacity are added, where the current system can’t keep up with the demand. Since , GW of coal- red power plants have been retired and another GW are scheduled to be retired over the next years but keep getting delayed due to increasing demand on the grid. Fuel switching and repowering of plants continues to grow in popularity as coal plants move to natural gas, bringing delayed retirement of facilities and a greater opportunity for MRO business. There are currently global nuclear projects representing nearly billion USD, including new nuclear units

planned. Canada is proceeding with advancing small modular reactors and conventional nuclear plants, and there is a great potential for SMRs to be installed in the industrial sector so that plants can generate their own power. This is still many years o as designs are just being approved and permitted, but it’s de - nitely something to watch. According to IIR, there are , active data center construc tion projects with a value of . trillion and average project size of . million in the U.S. alone, with the majority of these being constructed in Texas, Virginia, Georgia and Illinois, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The top companies funding this development are Amazon, Fermi and Tract, but the top companies represent more than half of the total with nearly trillion USD in active projects currently. In the oil and gas market, John Spears, of Spears & Associates, shared that global oil demand was up in the last year and is expected to be close to the same next year. Liqui ed natural gas (LNG) demand and capacity continues to increase in the U.S. and Canada, and was up in and is expected to increase in . The U.S. supplied a quarter of the global supply of LNG, followed by Qatar and Australia, while the European Union is the largest procurer of LNG, purchasing of the global LNG as it plans to cut fossil fuel usage by . China is of LNG sales currently, but the demand for power has them shifting to pipeline gas in many cases. Directly impacting the oil and gas industry, the recent federal budget reconciliation act, known widely as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, included phasing out of credits for renew able energy vehicles and energy-e cient home improve ments. It also mandates the Bureau of Land Management and

Cash flow from oil and gas operations is primarily going to Capex expenditures today. Source Spears & Associates

EPA Drinking Water Needs and Clean Watershed Needs Survey results. Source Thomas E. Decker Consulting

17

FALL 2025

VALVE-MEDIA.COM