Middle East and Africa Intrinsically Safe Equipment Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecast(2022 - 2027)

The Middle East and Africa Intrinsically Safe Equipment Market is expected to register a CAGR of 7.12% during the forecast period of 2021-2026. The advent of Industry 4.0 is driving enterprises in many end-user industries toward the age of digitization, creating a demand for hardware such as sensors, actuators, and valves, among other things, that can work with IoT gadgets for control and energy management. Such functionality can help in the current COVID-19 circumstance by allowing the device to be controlled remotely, driving the growth of the studied market.

Key Highlights

• The intrinsic safety in potentially explosive areas of process automation, which refers to the electronic prevention of sparks through the limitation of electricity, voltage, and wattage in the electric circuit concerned, is becoming increasingly popular in the region. This method makes applying pressure-proof enclosures for the installed equipment and devices in the explosive areas unnecessary.
• Intrinsically safe equipment offers several advantages for operating and maintaining a processing plant, for example, the servicing of devices and systems without a hot work permit.
• Further, the increasing demand for intrinsically safe devices for the Class I environment associated with flammable gasses and vapors, including gasoline, hydrogen, natural gas propane, ethanol, or methane, which exist under normal operating conditions and abnormal operating conditions, is aiding the market growth.
• Moreover, the continuous focus on developing innovative and advanced products creates an opportunity for the market, which results in strengthening the competitive environment. For instance, in July 2021, Pepperl+Fuchs launched the M-LB-2000 system that protects against surge Transients. The one-piece devices can be mounted on a standard DIN mounting rail, are approved for applications up to SIL 3, and are certified per ATEX and IECEx up to Zone 1. The M-LB-2000 is also UL-listed for Division 1 and used in intrinsically safe control loops. The M-LB-2000 can be used as an alternative to standard terminal blocks, as it also features a loop disconnect function.
• Intrinsically safe equipment is typically slightly more expensive than non-intrinsically safe equipment. This results more from obtaining and maintaining the approval than from the cost of additional or uncommon components.

Key Market Trends

The Oil and Gas Segment is Expected to Hold a Major Market Share

• An explosion requires three ingredients: oxygen, a flammable substance (fuel), and a source of ignition. It is not always possible to eliminate the fuel from the environment in an industry that deals specifically with flammable compounds, such as an oil and gas refinery.
• Intrinsically safe equipment permits safe operation in hazardous areas like mining, oil, and gas facilities by restricting the thermal or electrical energy accessible for ignition, which is accomplished by restricting the amount of power available to electrical tools in the hazardous region to a level that will not ignite the gases.
• According to BP Plc, the Middle East had the largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, at 75.8 trillion cubic meters in 202 Further, according to Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), The Middle East's natural gas demand hit 540 billion cubic meters in 201. Natural gas is mostly utilized for heating and power generation, and demand in the Middle East is expected to increase by 53% by 2050.
• Additionally, in November 2020, UAE's Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) announced discoveries of unconventional oil resources estimated at 22 billion barrels of oil in addition to 2 billion barrels of conventional oil in Abu Dhabi, which is expected to supplement the uptake of newer oil and gas upstream projects in the country. The abundance of gas reserves and the increasing demand for natural gas are expected to propel the growth of the studied market.
• Also, UAE intends to increase investments in field expansion projects and the use of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to counter production from maturing fields; as a result, new oilfield investments and policies would significantly drive the market's growth.

Safety Switches are Expected to Witness a Significant Growth

• An intrinsically safe switch is a device that instantly turns off the electricity supply when an electrical fault is detected, reducing the risk of electrical fires, electric shock, injury, and human death. These switches are commonly used for two purposes: as a disconnecting means for a service entrance and as a disconnecting and fault protection mechanism for motors or equipment. There are two types of safety switches, non-fusible safety switch and fusible safety switch.
• There are no fuses associated with non-fusible safety switches or circuit protection. It only provides a convenient means to open and close an electric circuit. The load is disconnected from its electrical power source when the circuit is opened, and the load is connected when the circuit is closed. External overcurrent devices, like circuit breakers or fuses, are used to protect the circuit.
• A fusible safety switch can be coupled with fuses in a single enclosure and, thus, is known as a fusible safety switch. The switch provides a means to manually open and close the circuit, and the fuse prevents heat-generated damage, overcurrent, or short-circuiting.
• The safety switches are crucial for safe and efficient work in hazardous locations like grain elevators, offshore drilling, petrochemical industries, waste treatment plants, paint booths, and hazardous waste handling facilities.
• According to General Authority for Statistics (Saudi Arabia), It is projected that the revenue of manufacture of chemicals and chemical products in Saudi Arabia would amount to approximately USD 54.2 billion by 2024, from USD 45.71 billion in 2020. The increasing trends of chemical production and consumption in the region would provide lucrative opportunities for the growth of the studied market.

Competitive Landscape

The Middle East and Africa Intrinsically Safe Equipment Market is a moderately fragmented market with the presence of some prominent players like Fluke Corporation, Eaton Corporation PLC, Pepperl + Fuchs, etc. The companies operating in the market are leveraging strategic collaborative initiatives to increase their market share and profitability.

• October 2021: Batteryless Machine Condition Monitoring Solutions are a collaboration between Fluke Reliability and Everactive. Everactive Edge technology powers the Fluke 3562 Screening Vibration Sensor, which uses patented circuits to extract all required energy from a machine's heat or the light in the room utilizing thermoelectric or photovoltaic energy harvesters. The high-tech vibration sensor monitors general vibration levels, temperature, and humidity, as well as the magnitude of the highest FFT peaks.
• June 2021: Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. announced that its software-configurable digital IO products contributed to a 50% size reduction for SICK AG's microScan3 Core I/O LiDAR-based safety laser scanner. SICK AG is a leading provider of industrial sensor-based solutions. SICK has increased the versatility of the new nanoScan3 Safety Laser Scanner by achieving the industry's smallest design for equipment and vehicles that require excellent performance but have limited mounting space.
• October 2020 - SICK introduced an easy solution for various quality assurance applications in factory automation with its new Quality Inspection SensorApp and InspectorP62x all-in-one vision sensor. The SensorApp is pre-installed in the entire InspectorP6xx series of 2D vision sensors from SICK, providing flexibility for various application requirements.

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• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
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