Welding & Cutting Gases
Distributors of compressed gases for welding and metal cutting.
Market snapshot
These figures describe Industrial Gases (5.2.4), the segment that Welding & Cutting Gases sits within. They are not figures for Welding & Cutting Gases on its own.
- Market size
- ~$16B
- Growth
- ~11.5%CAGR (2017–22, nominal)
- Companies
- ~92 firms
69.6% of firms have fewer than 20 employees: 64 micro-businesses, below most mandates.
- 20–99
- 621%
- 100–499
- 932%
- 500+
- 1346%
Two populations wear one label. A handful of global producers own the pipelines and air-separation plants and take most of the revenue; the rest are small packaged-gas and welding-supply distributors serving local trade accounts. The distributor tier is the only genuinely acquirable one, and it consolidates steadily.
NAICS 325120. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census.
Business model & economics
Revenue model
On-site, pipeline, bulk, and packaged gas supply contracts
Key economics
- Revenue per firm
- $178,388,717
- Revenue per employee
- $1,122,095
- Employees per firm
- 164.6
- Recurring revenue
- High
- EBITDA margin
- Strong
- Capex intensity
- High
long-term take-or-pay supply contracts
stable oligopoly economics
Characteristics
- Scale-driven: payroll is only 7% of revenue, so the cost base is assets, not headcount
- Thin strategic-buyer pool: only 13 firms exceed 500 employees, so exits skew sponsor-to-sponsor
- Stable, high-margin oligopoly (Linde, Air Products, Air Liquide).
- Long-term contracts and high switching costs.
- Clean hydrogen and carbon capture a major growth vector.
NAICS 325120. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census.
M&A deal context
Who’s acquiring
- Industrial-gas majors
- Clean-hydrogen & CCS investors
- Regional gas consolidators
What’s driving deals
- Clean-hydrogen and carbon-capture investment.
- Recurring contract economics.
- Regional and packaged-gas consolidation.
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