Distributors continue to home in on the booming domestic oil & gas market, driven by gains in oil and gas shale exploration and production. They say that despite concern over possibly stiffer regulations and environmental challenges, these markets continue to grow faster than other end-markets and hold potential for growth down the road.

The oil and gas market has always been a focus for GHX Industrial Inc., a Texas-based industrial distributor, but when a new technology to extract gas from shale in the U.S. emerged over the past decade, the company aggressively expanded its industrial hose and gasket business into new geographic markets.

Many distributors like GHX Industrial have benefited from …