In the global valve industry landscape, China has developed into a major valve powerhouse. In recent years, domestic valve companies have continuously promoted industrial upgrading and achieved a series of results. However, objectively speaking, China’s special valve industry still lags behind developed countries to a certain extent. Following the principles of learning, developing, and catching up, we have selected 20 overseas internationally renowned valve companies for review, providing a reference for valve companies (Since Farpro Valve is a Chinese valve supplier, in order to ensure a fair and objective statement, we have excluded Chinese valve manufacturers).
Based on consultations with relevant industry experts, technicians, and the collection of related materials, Farpro Valve has compiled a list of 20 internationally renowned valve companies for our valve industry to understand and learn from. These 20 valve companies are from three regions: North America, Europe, and Asia, with 10 from North America, 7 from Europe, and 3 from Asia, including some century-old enterprises. After dozens or even more than a hundred years of development and construction, these valve companies have formed their own unique characteristics and advantages in valve technology and product research and development. Most of them occupy a leading position in certain segmented markets. While enjoying high brand awareness, they have also achieved considerable operating income.
Main features of top valve companies
- American valve companies account for 45% of the total, indicating that the American valve industry still plays a significant role in the global valve industry.
- 85% of these renowned national valve companies have advantages in valve technology and products in certain fields, exhibiting “specialization”, “refinement”, and “superior strength”. For example, in the table, FISHER is the world’s leading control valve company, WATTS is the world’s largest independent valve manufacturer and seller, and the UK’s Goodwin is a world-renowned designer and manufacturer of check valves.
- All of these 20 companies have a presence in the Chinese market, either having established factories, representative offices, or general agencies. For instance, the American company BF (Bray) has a factory in Shanghai, China, while the Japanese company KOSO has a wholly-owned enterprise in Wuxi, China.
Well-known valve companies in North America (10)
– Fisher Valve Company (USA)
Fisher is the world’s leading control valve brand. The company was founded in 1880 and has over 140 years of development history. In 2001, Fisher-Rosemount was renamed Emerson Process Management and became a business unit of Emerson.
The company is known for its control valves. Its main products include control valves and actuators, linear control valves, some ball valves and butterfly valves, steam conditioning valves, digital valve controllers, and digital level controllers. The company serves industries such as power, chemical, petrochemical, refining, gas and oil exploration, mining, metallurgy, pulp and paper, and water treatment, providing control valves and field services.
– Masoneilan Valve Company (USA)
Masoneilan is the world’s second-largest control valve brand. After Mason Company acquired Neilan Company in 1931, it grew rapidly and gained wide recognition in the chemical industry. In the 1990s, it was acquired by the DRESSER Group and became an important part of the group.
Masoneilan provides various control valves, actuators, control instruments, level controllers, and pressure regulators that meet stringent service requirements for the energy industry. Dresser’s Masoneilan has a representative office in Beijing, China.
– Flowserve Valve Company (USA)
Flowserve is a Fortune 500 company and a world-leading manufacturer of valves and pumps, as well as one of the most important high-quality pipe and valve component manufacturers globally. Its products and services cover industries such as oil, natural gas, chemical, power generation, water resources, and some general industries. The company has R&D centers, manufacturing bases, inventory centers, and service centers in China.
– TYCO Valve Company (USA)
TYCO is the largest flow control valve manufacturer in the USA. Its main products include concentric butterfly valves, flanged butterfly valves, metal butterfly valves, gate valves, non-return valves, balancing valves, composite high-speed intake and exhaust valves, check valves, hydraulic control valves, slow-closing non-return valves, and multi-function pump control valves. The company has R&D centers, manufacturing bases, inventory centers, and service centers in China.
– VTI Valve Company (USA)
VTI is the world’s largest metal-seated ball valve manufacturer, headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company is renowned globally for producing “zero-leakage” shut-off valves for “severe conditions.”
VTI’s products are widely used in extremely harsh conditions, including high temperatures (up to 1800°F/982°C), high pressures (up to 20,000 psi/138 MPa), ultra-low temperatures (near absolute zero), high particulate environments (such as mining, catalysts in petrochemicals, and PTO processes), as well as high wear and high corrosion conditions. Its quality acceptance standards far exceed current API and ANSI standards in the USA. To ensure product quality, VTI manufactures 100% of its products at its headquarters in the USA.
VTI has achieved successful application results with nearly 100 user units in the Chinese power market, including over 20 users of 600 MW and above supercritical units that have adopted VTI products.
– WATTS Valve Company (USA)
Founded in 1874, WATTS is the world’s largest independent valve manufacturer and seller, ranking first in over a dozen countries. Main products include KF, PBVS, and IPD ball valves, ISI butterfly valves, Spence self-operating control valves, Leslie high-performance control valves, AVC self-operating automatic control valves for liquids, Regulator pressure reducing valves, safety valves, valves for buildings and HVAC systems, precision valves for aerospace, military, and other special valves, cryogenic valves, and vacuum application valves. WATTS entered China in 1994 and has its headquarters in Shanghai.
– Conval Valve Company (USA)
The company was established in 1967, and its main products are high-temperature, high-pressure gate valves, non-return valves, gate valves, and ball valves. Its products are mainly used for turbine drains and related applications in units of 300 MW and above, including supercritical units. They are widely used in power plants and the petrochemical industry. Conval is a world-renowned professional high-pressure forged valve manufacturer.
In the early 1980s, as a valve supplier for Westinghouse at the time, the company entered the Chinese market. Although Westinghouse was later acquired by Siemens, Siemens still regards Conval as its preferred valve supplier, and Conval’s products are widely used in China.
– MOGAS Valve Company (USA)
Based in Houston, USA, MOGAS is renowned worldwide for specializing in the production of ball valves for severe service conditions. MOGAS has over 40 years of manufacturing and service experience in the field of severe service ball valves. As early as 1973, MOGAS began manufacturing valves for use under high-pressure, high-temperature conditions involving scale-forming solid media and corrosive base materials or coatings. In the mid-1970s, MOGAS developed metal-seated ball valves for the synthetic fuel industry’s coal gasification/liquefaction processes, marking the start of the development of the C-series valve line. The company’s main customers are in the power, mining, chemical processing, and special application industries. MOGAS has sales and service centers in China.
– BF Valve Company (USA)
Established in 1876, BF has developed into a world-renowned forged steel and cast steel valve industry leader over more than a century. The company’s main target markets are North America and Europe, but through various channels such as engineering companies and distributors, its products are distributed worldwide and applied in industries such as oil and natural gas, petrochemicals, power plants, and chemicals. Its customers include hundreds of world-renowned users and engineering companies like Shell, Danaher, BASF, and NVIDIA. The company has a factory in Shanghai, mainly engaged in the production of cast steel valves.
– Velan Inc. Valve Company (Canada)
Velan Inc. is one of the world’s leading steel valve manufacturers and one of the most important high-quality pipe and valve component manufacturers globally. The company has R&D centers, manufacturing bases, inventory centers, and service centers in China.
The company was founded in 1950 by renowned inventor and entrepreneur A.K. Velan. Velan has multiple product lines divided into major categories: gate valves, butterfly valves, ball valves, stop valves, check valves, filters; quarter-turn valves, special valves, and steam trap valves. Velan has been an active and reliable brand in the nuclear industry, having supplied valves to the vast majority of nuclear power plants worldwide. Its main service industries include fossil fuels, nuclear power and combined heat and power, oil and natural gas, refining and petrochemicals, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and cryogenics, mining, water and wastewater, pulp and paper. The company has R&D centers, manufacturing bases, inventory centers, and service centers in Beijing and Shanghai.
Well-known European valve companies (7)
– German HANK Valve Company
Hank valves are globally renowned for producing high-quality, advanced valves, measurement and control systems. Founded in 1852, after nearly 200 years of development, it has grown into a multinational manufacturing enterprise with subsidiaries and branches in dozens of countries worldwide.
The company’s main products include high temperature and pressure valves, cryogenic valves, pneumatic valves, water supply and drainage valves, butterfly valves, plug valves, hydraulic ball valves, needle valves, ball valves, solenoid valves, control valves, check valves, steam traps, and various other valve types. It serves many industries such as oil and petrochemicals, biopharmaceuticals, textiles, food and beverage, brewing, tobacco, sugar, pulp and paper. The company has a general agency in Shenzhen, China.
– German KSB Valve Company
German KSB valves (KSB) is one of the three largest pump and valve manufacturers in the world. The company was founded in 1871 and is an international corporation with six factories in Germany and France.
KSB’s main products include gate valves, filters, ball valves, gate valves, steam traps, butterfly valves and other general industrial valves. Its business areas cover building services, industrial and public water utilities, energy sector and mining. Under the PSA brand, KSB sells high-quality gate valves and ball valves for the energy and gas industries; under the MIL brand, it sells control valves produced by its Indian subsidiary MIL Controls Limited, which enjoys particularly high brand recognition in Asia. The company has a general agency in Shanghai, China.
– French OTTO Valve Company
French OTTO valves (OTTO) is one of the major manufacturers and suppliers in the European fluid control field. The company was founded in 1805. After over 200 years of development, OTTO has 15 production centers in the US, Germany, UK and Italy, covering various areas of the fluid control industry.
Its products and application areas include ball valves, butterfly valves, gate valves, stop valves, check valves, filters, pinch valves, piston valves, plug valves, balance valves, diaphragm valves, steam traps, solenoid valves, corrugated pipe stop valves, corrugated pipe gate valves, hydraulic control valves, pneumatic ball valves, pneumatic butterfly valves, pneumatic control valves, electric control valves, electric ball valves, electric gate valves, electric stop valves, electric butterfly valves and other product lines. The company’s products are used in industries such as oil, petrochemicals, power, metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, food, water treatment, municipal water supply and drainage, natural gas, papermaking, electronics, buildings, and mechanical equipment. The company has a general agency in Beijing.
– French DESCOTE Valve Company
Located in the major industrial city of Lyon, France. Founded in 1956, DESCOTE specializes in designing and manufacturing high-quality corrugated pipe sealed stop valves for severe service conditions in the chemical, oil and nuclear industries, involving hazardous media such as liquid chlorine, fluorine, phosgene, HCN, etc., requiring low fugitive emissions and zero leakage. DESCOTE’s corrugated pipe sealed stop valves are specially designed and manufactured for harsh conditions with high safety and reliability requirements, and are renowned in the industry. The company has a representative office in Shanghai.
– British Spirax Sarco Valve Company
The company’s history can be traced back to 1888, and it was established in the UK in 1937. It is an enterprise engaged in R&D, production, foreign trade and sales of valves. The company mainly produces stop valves, steam traps, safety valves, thermodynamic steam traps, Spirax pressure reducing valves, ball valves, check valves, hydraulic control valves, exhaust valves, etc., and is a leader in steam system valves worldwide. The company’s China regional headquarters is located in Shanghai.
– British Goodwin Valve Company
Goodwin is one of over 20 subsidiaries of the British Goodwin PLC Group (established in 1883), and is a world-renowned designer and manufacturer of check valves. The company’s main products include three categories: double door check valves, axial flow check valves, and axial flow control valves, primarily used in the oil and natural gas industry, offshore drilling platforms, liquefied natural gas transportation, refineries, chemical plants, desalination projects, power plants, coal chemical industry, shipyards, etc.
The company’s valve products have been applied in many projects in China, such as the West-East Gas Pipeline, the Tarim Oilfield Natural Gas Ethane Recovery Project, Sinopec Shijiazhuang Crude Oil Pipeline, Caofeidian Crude Oil Storage, Guangdong Dapeng LNG, Daqing Ethylene, Dalian Shipyard, and others.
– Italian OMB
The OMB valve group is headquartered in Italy and is a diversified energy industry valve manufacturer founded in 1973. It has become a globally recognized forged steel valve manufacturer for the oil and natural gas industry. The group operates factories in Italy, Singapore, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The company’s products are widely used in China’s oil and natural gas industry.
Asian Major Valve Companies (3)
The major renowned valve companies in Asia are mainly concentrated in Japan, including KITZ, YAMATAKE, and KOSO. (Excluding Chinese valve companies)
– Japanese KITZ
KITZ is a renowned Asian valve company, one of the world’s few comprehensive valve manufacturers. Since its establishment in 1951, the company has always provided customers with fluid control machinery centered on valves, with products spanning wide areas from household to industrial production.
KITZ has ten production plants, carrying out integrated production from casting, forging to assembly. It not only manufactures general equipment valves and various industrial package unit valves, but also produces various automatic operation and testing equipment valves. KITZ has an agent company in Beijing, China.
– Japanese YAMATAKE
Yamatake (Yamatake headquarters) was founded in 1906 and established in 1949. Its main products include azbil valves, positioners, sensors, limit switches, electric control valves, electric actuators, etc. It has a branch in Shanghai, China.
– Japanese KOSO
KOSO was established in July 1993, primarily manufacturing various control valves, actuators, and sensors. It is a professional control valve manufacturing company. In Japan, KOSO is known as the “department store of control valves,” offering six major categories with 25 series ranging from low to high pressure, low to high temperature, and normal to high temperature/high pressure conditions, including ball valves, gate valves, control ball valves, switch ball valves, standard butterfly valves, and high-performance butterfly valves. KOSO has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Wuxi, China.
The gap between Chinese and foreign valve companies and their development reference
– Brand Influence
Well-known foreign valve companies have significantly stronger brand influence than domestic ones. For example, in the petrochemical industry, brands like Fisher (USA) and KTM (Japan) enjoy widespread reputation and acclaim; in the water treatment industry, brands like Watts (USA) are already deeply rooted in people’s minds. In contrast, China lacks valve companies with strong brand influence and needs further integration and brand building to strengthen leading enterprises.
It’s worth emphasizing that in recent years, the Chinese government has been encouraging domestic manufacturing companies to follow the path of “specialization, refinement, uniqueness and novelty”. Through reviewing the situation of internationally renowned valve companies as described above, we find that 85% of them have advantages in valve technology and products in certain fields, exhibiting “specialization” and “refinement”.
Farpro Valve believes this is particularly worth learning from for Chinese valve industrial enterprises that are considered “big but not strong” overall. Pursuing “specialization and refinement” can concentrate a company’s existing technical, talent and capital advantages in a certain field to form relative strengths, conducive to establishing technical advantages and laying a solid foundation for enhancing brand influence.
– Manufacturing and Processing
For example, in welding processes, KSB has widely adopted special welding flux for cobalt-free welding. In contrast, domestic valve companies often use outdated welding methods. In the application of new forging processes, KSB uses high-temperature alloy steels F91 and F22 as the main valve materials, with high-pressure valves being mainly forgings to ensure product reliability and economy. Domestically, valve blanks are mostly castings with few forgings, and forgings for valves below 600 lb pressure are extremely rare, with simple processing techniques.
– Sizing Software
Taking control valve design and R&D as an example, leading foreign control valve manufacturers like Fisher (USA) have accumulated rich experience in design, manufacturing, etc. during more than 100 years of development. Fisher’s sizing software is powerful with clear and complete prompts, providing strong support for perfect product design.
– Testing Equipment
Again taking Fisher as an example, its testing laboratory facilities are very complete. Its labs can perform CV (KV) tests, FL tests, XT tests, dynamic torque tests, cycle life tests, dynamic high and low temperature tests, etc., all using real-time dynamic data acquisition and storage. In contrast, domestic valve manufacturers generally only have water flow test rigs, and most have not adopted dynamic data acquisition and storage.
– Process Depth
Foreign valve companies have many full-time and part-time technical support personnel very familiar with production processes of industries like power, petrochemicals, steel, cement, etc. Most of them have worked in those industries and are familiar with field conditions like pressure, temperature, pressure difference, flushing, corrosion, erosion, flashing, etc. Therefore, they can provide the most suitable products for end users in valve design and manufacturing. In comparison, the corresponding technical support personnel at domestic valve manufacturers lack such professional competence. It is recommended that capable domestic valve companies actively cultivate and improve such capabilities to provide better products and services to end users.
– Standards Compliance
Although domestic and foreign control valve production and manufacturing standards are basically consistent, internationally renowned valve companies often exceed standards. For example, BF (USA) often designs and manufactures forged steel , cast iron valves, cast steel valves, etc. beyond standard specifications, which is highly praised by customers. In contrast, domestic valve manufacturers often only meet standards, with some standards not updated for over 10 years. Compared to the “exceeding” performance of foreign companies, the domestic “pursuing” shows a huge gap. It is suggested that the valve industry: 1) timely update relevant valve standards in line with industry development; 2) strictly and rigorously implement standards in valve design and manufacturing.