The US industrial gas market is the largest in the world, accounting for nearly a third of the world industrial gas market. It achieved revenues of approximately $27.05bn in 2023. This is up from just under $18.8bn in 2013, indicating a compound annual growth rate of about 4% per annum over the decade.
The growth of the market needs to be set against the wider context for the country’s gross domestic product in the same period. Average real GDP growth for the decade (2013 to 2023), stood at 2.1% per annum. The US economy shrank, like most others, during the coronavirus pandemic, but in the years since the 2020 pandemic GDP has recorded rebound growth. In 2023 real GDP grew by 2.5%.
Industrial production, as measured by the Industrial Production Index IPI, has experienced more exaggerated fluctuations over the past decade. There have been two periods of decline: in 2016 the IPI saw a decline of 1.8%, while 2020 (the pandemic year) saw a substantial decline of 4.5%. In the years 2021 and 2022 the country saw recovery growth, delivering a decent 4.4% and 3.4% growth respectively in industrial production, whereas the year 2023 shown some slowing down. In fact, industrial production grew by just by 0.2% in 2023.
What about inflation? While things were turbulent for inflation globally in 2022 and 2023, inflation in the US has generally remained low and steady over the last decade. In 2021 and 2022, however, the rate of inflation rose to the highest rate seen in more than 20 years, standing at 4.6% and 7.1% respectively in those years, mostly due to the energy prices growth. In 2023, energy prices dropped after two years of growth and inflation slowed accordingly, coming in at 3.6%.
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