Air Products to Spend Additional $4 Billion on Clean Energy Transition

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Air Products and Chemicals Incorporated (NYSE:APD) (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania) plans to spend or commit an additional $4 billion in new capital investment to support the clean energy transition. Industrial Info is currently tracking nearly $9 billion worth of active capital-spending projects for Air Products across the globe, including $6.4 billion in the U.S. and Canada.

"We continue to see significant opportunities for hydrogen and carbon capture technologies," Seifi Ghasemi, president and chief executive of Air Products, said in a July 25 company press release accompanying an investor call regarding the company's sustainability commitments.

Meanwhile, Air Products "will also continually increase its use of renewable energy, convert its fleet of about 2,000 trucks to hydrogen fuel cell zero-emission vehicles, and implement additional actions," to help reach net-zero operations by 2050. Air Products also announced it plans to reduce the intensity of its Scope 3 emissions by one-third by 2030. Scope 3 emissions are those released when customers consume the company's products.

Air Products' active capital-spending projects include constructing, owning and operating the $4 billion Geismar Blue Hydrogen Complex in Louisiana--the world's largest blue hydrogen production facility--which would be designed to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) and produce approximately 750 million standard cubic feet per day of blue hydrogen; a portion of the production will be distributed via the company's Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network, with the remainder used for ammonia production. The project is in the permitting stage. Subscribers to Industrial Info's (GMI) Chemical Processing Project Database can click here for the detailed project report.

Another major blue hydrogen project is the US$1 billion Edmonton Net-Zero Blue Hydrogen Energy Complex in Alberta. The facility would have a long-term capacity goal of 1,500 metric tons per day of net-zero hydrogen by utilizing auto-thermal reforming (ATR)--which enables 95% of the carbon to be captured, transported, and stored underground. The project design also includes carbon sequestration and the construction of a hydrogen-fueled power plant. Subscribers can click here for the project report.

While "blue" commodities are produced using natural gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, "green" ones are produced through the electrolysis of water, which can be powered by renewable energy.

Air Products expects to kick off construction of a $100 million green hydrogen plant in Casa Grande, Arizona in September. The facility is expected to be brought online in 2023.

The company expects capital expenditures of $4.5 billion to $5 billion for full-year fiscal 2022.

The energy transition and environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives are helping to drive project activity in the Chemical Processing Industry. For more information on this activity, including "green" and "blue" projects, and the state of the industry, see Industrial Info's May 23, 2022, article - Mid-Year Outlook: Post-Lockdown Demand, ESG Drive Chem Projects.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Project Database can click here for a full list of detailed reports for projects mentioned in this article, and click here for a full list of related plant profiles.

Subscribers can click here for a full list of reports for active capital-spending projects involving Air Products.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).